


Gwilym

by celedan



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Anal Sex, Canon Compliant, Family, Happy Ending, Jack becomes mortal?, M/M, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Post-Children of Earth, Translation Available, Typical Torchwood, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:56:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celedan/pseuds/celedan
Summary: An unfortunate accident with an alien leads Jack to become pregant with Ianto's baby. They decide to give it a chance, and raise the child together while still working for Torchwood. But first, they have to survive Jack's pregnancy with everything that entails.





	Gwilym

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Gwilym - German](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11654691) by [celedan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celedan/pseuds/celedan). 



**Chapter 01**

“ Shit!” Jack screamed in pain while he tried to push off the alien which had got its teeth deeply embedded in Jack's thigh. “Could somebody rid me of this thing, for fuck's sake!?”

Owen and Ianto tried to pull the aggressive alien from their boss while Gwen, without beating around the bush, emptied half her magazine in the beast as a precaution. With a shrill cry, it eventually let go of Jack, and stumbled to the ground under Ianto and Owen's tugging, the two men following.

Since it still didn't want to give up (or die), and over and over tried to crawl towards Jack, Gwen and Tosh ultimately shot it in the head. Under a fountain of bubbling green blood, it collapsed with a gurgle, and finally stayed still on the ground. 

Worn out, Jack let himself sink back with a pained moan. “Nice to be irresistible, but that's a little over the top, even for me,” he muttered sulkily. 

“ Stop complaining,” Owen admonished him.

“ What!?” he bridled up. His fucking leg hurt like a bitch, therefore he was entitled to being grumpy. 

But before the two men could pick a childish fight, Ianto and Tosh grabbed Jack under his arms to heave him up, while Gwen steered Owen in the direction of the dead alien to pack it into the SUV. 

 

Back in the Hub, they put the dead alien into one of Owen's freezers, because the autopsy table was currently occupied by Jack whose thigh Owen patched up rather half-heartedly. 

“ There, as good as new.” He patted Jack on his bandaged thigh, making him flinch while gnashing his teeth. “Go easy tonight. Knowing you, tomorrow you'll be healed again .”

It hurt nonetheless, but Jack didn't say that out loud because he wanted the others to finally go home, and leave him alone. “Go home,” he instructed his team therefore promptly. “You can deal with the rest tomorrow.”

Since it was long after midnight, nobody was inclined to oppose the boss' orders, and within only a few minutes, the whole team was out the door with a last “good night!”. Only Ianto stayed with the intention to take care of Jack, provided he allowed that somebody took care of him.

“ Ianto,” Jack sighed. “Why don't you go home, too? It's been a long day.”

Ianto shrugged. “I thought...”

Jack didn't miss the hopeful tone which lay in Ianto's hesitance which was why he gave in with a tired smile. “Okay, I could use a little company.”

He knew that he had said the right thing when Ianto's face brightened up suddenly. The young man nodded eagerly. “If you need something... Are you hungry? Or shall I bring you more pain meds?”

Jack shook his head. “Owen drugged me up to the eyeballs with so much pain meds that it'll last till next week. The only thing I want is my bed.”

“ Oh,” Ianto made contemplatively. “ Can you manage the ladder?” he asked, although actually he knew the answer to this.

Jack grimaced when he realised this, too. “No,” he confirmed, and sighed exasperated. “Then I suppose, it'll be the sofa .”

Ianto nodded. “I'll get your things up here.” And with this he disappeared into Jack's office to climb down into the bunk underneath to get Jack's bedding.

Meanwhile, Jack let himself fall onto the sofa, frustrated but relieved, after he'd simply swept some empty pizza cartons on the floor. Not two minutes later, Ianto returned with Jack's pillow and blanket in his arms, arranging them calmly beside him on the sofa.

“ Is there something else I can do for you?” he asked once more after straightening up again.

Interested, Jack looked up to the younger man, and eagerly soaked up the sight of the tall body clad in one of those irresistible suits. “You could keep me company, here on the couch,” he grinned saucily.

Ianto shook his head, chuckling, but slipped his jacket from his shoulders unceremoniously to put it neatly over a chair. Then, he knelt before Jack, and divested him of his shoes.

“ Do you have any idea how much this turns me on,” Jack asked rather rhetorically, his breathing going slightly faster while he stared down at Ianto kneeling between his legs, and carrying out his task with a unperturbed, polite expression, still looking neatly even without the jacket. Only the delicate blush on his cheeks, barely recognisable in the dim light, gave away that he wasn't as unfazed by the whole situation as he wanted to make Jack – and himself – believe.

“I don't know what you are talking about, Sir,” Ianto replied dryly when he busied himself with Jack's torn, blood soaked trousers, while Jack freed himself from shirt and T-shirt. 

In eager anticipation, Jack spread his legs a little more to give Ianto more space. The young man made short work of the trousers, which were beyond help anyway, dragged them carefully down Jack's legs including his underwear, and dropped both items next to the sofa. He'd take care of that tomorrow. For a short, but intense moment, he fixed his hungry gaze on Jack's slowly awakening erection, before he grabbed his hips, and, mindful of Jack's injured leg, bend over Jack's lap. Jack shuddered blissfully when he felt Ianto's moist breath on himself, and he pressed his hips forwards with a begging whine. He made a strangled sound as Ianto's lips tenderly brushed against his glans which was why he could feel the self-satisfied grin of the younger man before he let Jack's cock slide into his hot, wet mouth.

Involuntarily, Jack cried out brokenly, and buried his fingers in Ianto's hair instinctively. Gasping, he sank back against the backrest of the sofa, letting his eyes slide shut in ecstasy as Ianto took him deeper inside his mouth, and then started to hum softly. The vibrations transferring to Jack's cock almost drove him over the edge, and he shoved his hips up against Ianto pleadingly. As Ianto's slender fingers gently encircled his balls, and started to massage the globes within while his other hand sought its way between Jack's legs to rub firmly against his opening, Jack couldn't hold back any more. He gasped loudly as he came into Ianto's mouth while the younger man continued sucking relentlessly, swallowing around him, and shoved a finger into his twitching opening. 

“ Ianto,” he whimpered breathlessly, and already in the next moment, Ianto let go of him completely, urged him entirely onto the sofa, and stood up to frantically rip off his clothes, every thought of restraint or sense of order forgotten. 

Relaxed, Jack leant back on the sofa, and watched Ianto with interest, his gaze finally coming to rest on Ianto's rock-hard, blood-red penis, and he licked his dry lips in anticipation. 

For a split second, they looked at each other intensely, when Ianto finally stood before him completely naked. But just as fast the spell was broken when Jack parted his thighs invitingly, grabbed Ianto's hand, and pulled him on top of himself. He kissed Ianto demandingly, tasting himself in the younger man's mouth while he wrapped his uninjured leg around Ianto's hip, grinding himself suggestively against him, his cock once more twitching in interest as the shaft slowly filled with blood again

Ianto moaned into the kiss, all his senses suffused with Jack, his taste in his mouth, the feeling of his sweat-slicked, flawless skin over firm muscles against his own, the irresistible scent of Jack's pheromones in his nose, intensified tenfold after he just came.

He blinked confused as Jack suddenly pressed something into his hand. A little dazed, Ianto stared at the little tube he suddenly held in his hand, and then at Jack's face who threw him a suggestive grin. Ianto rather not asked where Jack got the lube from again (conveniently, everywhere in Ianto's flat as well as the Hub little tubes with lube showed up every time they needed them, hidden by Jack in the most peculiar places), but fumbled impatiently with the bottle top until he could spread some of the gel onto his fingers.

Jack let out a breathless hiss as Ianto rubbed the cool gel over his opening before slipping one finger inside.

Both men moaned brokenly, and Jack pushed his hips against Ianto in a silent, impatient demand to take a second finger already. His moans got louder as Ianto started to stretch him slowly – too slowly –, and finally breached him with a third finger.

“ Ianto, do it!” Jack whined, and got a hold of Ianto's wrist. He suppressed a whimper as he pulled Ianto's fingers roughly from his own body, but he just couldn't stand it any more. He had to feel Ianto inside of him. Now. He craved the sensation of being filled with the younger man's hot shaft. He needed the sweet pain when Ianto moved inside of him, and he wanted to feel Ianto coming deep in his body.

With shaking fingers, Ianto spread the remaining gel over his rock-hard cock, grabbed Jack's hips, and pressed into him. He moaned drawn-out as he slipped inside Jack's heat. 

They remained absolutely motionless for a few moments while they enjoyed the feeling of being connected so deeply to each other. Jack thought the feeling of this first penetration was almost better than the whole remaining act; when your body felt the arousing shock of being taken, when the initially reluctant muscles slowly remembered that this wasn't the first time, so that, after a while, they took in the intruder eagerly, enveloping him tightly. 

Jack nodded shakily as his muscles stopped protesting after a while, and Ianto slowly withdrew, only to penetrate him in the next moment with a hard thrust. Ianto moaned as he pushed his way through into the hot tightness once more, and Jack let out a stifling scream as Ianto's cock rubbed against his prostate with this first thrust. 

Anxious to hit this same spot from now on, Ianto pounded relentlessly into the body under him in a steady rhythm, so that after a while, Jack started to whimper and shout in his arms, so much was he tormented by the arousing, electrical shocks his overstimulated nerves chased through his body.

He slipped his hand between their bodies to grip his dripping erection, while he tried to press more tightly against Ianto to feel his cock that much deeper inside. But Ianto shoved his hand away, and instead closed his own fingers around Jack. Only a few, jerky touches sufficed to make Jack freeze suddenly before he shakily spilt over Ianto's fingers, desperately gulping for breath. The rhythmic muscle contractions caused by Jack's orgasm which held Ianto's erection as if in a vice, now caused the younger man to freeze in turn, making him pour his come deep inside Jack's body.

Trembling, he collapsed on top of Jack, and tiredly laid his head on Jack's shoulder. He felt the older man's arms around his quivering body while, for the moment, both of them only tried to catch their breath.

Jack kissed Ianto's forehead, and let himself sink back relaxed, his arms tightly wrapped around Ianto, while he still felt him nestled deep inside of him.

After a while, after the sweat on their bodies had cooled, they started to shiver from the cold which was why Jack pulled the duvet over them both that had started to slip to the ground during their activities. Tomorrow, they would be horribly sticky, but Ianto didn't feel like getting up again, and dashing around naked through the ice-cold Hub only to get a wash cloth, and Jack didn't want to let go of the warm weight on top of him. To make his point clear, he therefore tightened his arms a little more around Ianto.

Content, he closed his eyes.

 

** Chapter 02 **

Ianto blinked sleepily when he was woken by the alert of the cog door the next morning, although he still was too sleep drunk to realise that this meant that the whole team just arrived at work while he and Jack lay naked on the sofa for all to see. 

“ Oh God!” Owen moaned promptly when he came in sight of the couch. “This sofa will never be the same again!”

Ianto froze, wide awake all of a sudden, but he did not dare to move. Maybe it worked when he pretended to be asleep. Whimpering, he hid his flaming face against Jack's chest who in turn seemed to be awake if the smug noise he made was any indication. Ianto thanked God on his knees that they were at least covered with the blanket which Jack wouldn't have bothered with in the slightest though to present everybody with a hands-on view of his gorgeous body. 

It seemed like an eternity to Ianto although in reality, it only were a few seconds, but eventually he came to the conclusion that he couldn't lie here forever. Reluctantly, he grabbed the blanket tighter to hold it in place where it belonged, and turned around to his team members who, of course, still stood gathered before the couch, and, looking down at them, didn't seem inclined to move away any time soon. Probably from shock, but in the case of the two women rather out of interest at the view. 

“ Ehm, morning,” he mumbled, and he couldn't look Owen nor the two broadly grinning if blushing women in the eye. Instead, he glared at Jack, who lay there relaxed with his arms folded behind his head, watching the whole scene with a satisfied grin. He punched him in the shoulder. 

“Ow!” Jack grumbled, and rubbed his shoulder in a fake pout.

“ And you seem to find this funny,” Ianto hissed before he glared at his team mates, giving thus Jack no chance to reply with an inappropriate remark. “Don't you want to turn around, or simply go away?! I'd like to stand up.”

“ That's my cue,” Owen stated, and threw a last, wistful gaze at the sofa and the two naked men on it. 

“I expect you to dry clean that thing, Ianto, before I will ever sit down on it again!” Decidedly, Owen crossed his arms before his chest, while the two women still giggled enraptured. Then, he marched away into his lab. Gwen and Tosh scurried over to their work stations, but threw stealthy glances over their shoulders once in a while.

Grumbling, Ianto at least fished for the most necessary of his clothes under the sofa, all the time being painfully aware of Jack's amused gaze watching him. “I don't think it's funny,” he spat, his cheeks still crimson.

“ I do.”

“ Not helping, Jack!”

Instead of embarrassing himself while trying to dress under the protection of the covers, Ianto snatched up his clothes, wrapped himself in Jack's blanket, and stormed away in a strop in the direction of the showers. 

Sighing, Jack who, to be honest, didn't mind lying naked on the sofa all of a sudden, grabbed his clothes from the floor as well. He considered persuading Ianto to a second round down in his bunk where the others wouldn't even notice, but given Ianto's foul mood he probably could kiss  _ that _ thought goodbye. A shame, really. It would have been real fast, honest. He was still sufficiently stretched from last night, feeling Ianto's sticky come inside him, so that they could have saved themselves the foreplay. But well, necessity was the mother of invention. He could have fun in the shower with just himself as well. Maybe tonight, Ianto was in the mood again.

Without being bothered about Gwen and Tosh's not really subtle peeks, he headed for his office, clad only in his retro shorts, his leg healed by now of course. 

 

** Chapter 03 **

Jack blinked, and promptly had to sit back down into his office chair because suddenly everything went black before his eyes. Inhaling deeply, he rubbed his hand over his face, sitting still for a few minutes. 

He'd been dizzy already yesterday, and the second time now really started to alarm him a little. But before he would allow Owen to examine him...

What comes without help must go without help. What's the worst that could happen to him? Dying?

Ignoring the concerned voice in his head sounding suspiciously like Ianto, he slowly tried standing up once more, and when no black spots danced before his eyes, he headed for the conference room and their daily team meeting.

 

The team meeting went uncomplicated and pretty fast because everyone hoped on an early evening. The Rift behaved calmly at the moment, as did the Weevils. 

A little relieved, Jack closed the meeting for today because he felt slightly sick. He seriously considered just quietly lying down after everyone went home, and especially without Ianto noticing who, without a doubt, would stay longer to relentlessly attend to his Sisyphus job of filing all the still uncatalogued artefacts.

With this in prospect, he rose, but once again, dizziness gripped him so that he had to brace himself on the desk before him. 

“Jack!” Gwen cried, and grabbed his arm to support him as she was the one closest to him. “Ev'rything all right?!”

Jack breathed in deeply once, and straightened again. He shooed her away with a wave of his hand. “I'm fine .”

“ Look a little pale,” Owen remarked frowning.

“I'm fine!” Jack persisted once more, but nobody seemed to care for his opinion because now, Ianto came forward as well to speak up.

“ He threw up,” the young man announced. “Two days ago, and this morning. At least that's the times I know about.”

“Okay, young man, up on my table with you,” Owen declared adamantly, and stepped up to Jack to drag him into his lab. He allowed it because every one of his staff suddenly wore a reproving look on their faces so that he wouldn't be able to get out of this without a fight. Even less when he felt that miserable in the first place. He threw Ianto a venomous look over his shoulder. 

“ Sit,” Owen ordered as soon as they arrived inside his lab, and he got his instruments out and ready.

With a pouting huff, Jack sat on the autopsy table, dangling his legs cantankerously. He stared stoically straight ahead while Owen took a blood sample. “Everything is fine,” he tried again, but in vain. “I just haven't eaten today. Even I can get dizzy in that case.” 

Owen threw him a sceptical look while he put Jack's blood sample into the newly retrieved alien artefact that fortunately would allow them something useful like a first complete examination in just a few seconds. “Sure. You get ill so often after all.”

“ I  _ can _ become ill,” Jack persisted, peeved. 

“Of course you do. Ah, here we are .” For a moment, Owen stared impassively at the little display of the artefact before he put it down, and dryly declared, “Congratulations, you're pregnant.”

 

** Chapter 04 **

Deadly silence echoed through the lab for a few seconds after this announcement, after which the squeaking exclamations of the two women broke it again as well as Jack's “not again!” while Ianto did not say a word, only looking a little pale. 

Owen shrugged, and put his equipment away. “Yep. Sorry.”

“ It had to be that damn alien last week that bit me,” Jack grumbled darkly. 

“ What?” Tosh suddenly exclaimed in concern. “Like a Nostrovit? Do we have to worry that the mother will turn up to get her child now?”

“ In that case, I would have been heavily pregnant over night last week already,” Jack stopped her train of thought. “That wasn't a Nostrovit. His blood was green, not black.”

“ Calm down,” Owen threw in. “We still don't know which species it was, didn't have time yet to do an autopsy. It really may reproduce like a Nostrovit, who knows. So, first, let me see what you're breeding there.”

He ignored Jack's venomous look, and instead pulled forth a big syringe.

“ And what do you think you're doing with that?” Jack asked sceptically. 

“ Amniocentesis,” Owen explained unfazed before he paused. “Provided you have something like that. Otherwise, I have to think of something else.”

“ Great,” Jack grumbled under bated breath.

“ Don't be such a baby – Sorry for the pun. Didn't you tell us that you've been pregnant before? Then you know how this works.”

“ That was a misshapen One-Night-Stand with an Alien,” Jack protested irascible. “His race didn't have the same conception of the sexes as we do.”

Gwen grunted amused. “He mistook you for a woman?”

“Don't you have anything better to do!” Jack barked, but his co-workers just stayed standing around him calmly while Owen hooked him up on his machines to project a full body scan up onto the screen, showing promptly something like a big bubble-like object in Jack's abdomen. There wasn't much visible of the content though.

“As soon as we know what this thing is, and what we'll do about it,  _ then _ we'll have something to do,” Gwen explained unfazed. “Until then, we will stay right here until we've made sure you're all right.”

“ I'm touched... Ow!”

“ Sorry,” Owen said, but didn't really sound sorry as he plunged the long, thick needle into Jack's abdomen. “Ha, there's actually amniotic fluid,“ Owen cried satisfied. “Or something like it.”

The whole Torchwood team watched excited and nervous how Owen analysed the amniotic fluid, and eventually began to make interested noises.

“ Dear God, Owen!” Ianto burst out in the end, drawing everyone's astonished gaze on himself which made him blush because of all the abrupt attention on himself. “Say something already.”

Owen wasn't fazed in the slightest by Ianto's uncharacteristic outburst. “We're definitely not dealing with a pure alien baby which uses Jack just as an incubator,” Owen explained while he still stared intently into his microscope. “Jack is definitely one parent.”

“ Great!” the father-to-be exclaimed exasperated. 

“So, the other parent is this alien?” Tosh asked, and immediately felt a little stupid because, who else should be the other parent. 

“No,” Owen then exclaimed buoyant. Everyone held their breath in shock as he nonchalantly swivelled around in his chair, casting a glance at the assembled team before he focussed his gaze on Ianto whom immediately paled considerably. “Congrats, Ianto, you're becoming a father.”

All eyes turned immediately to Ianto who looked as if he would faint any moment now. But he stood his ground bravely, and only balled his hands to fists so that nobody noticed how much they shook.

“ I guess that the alien's saliva contained some composition that prepared Jack's body for the insemination,” Owen explained further, still unfazed. “Bad luck for the alien that we killed it before it could've had its fun with our Captain.” Owen threw Jack and Ianto a huge, smug grin. “As we all know, it was Ianto who had fun instead that evening.”

Ianto gnashed his teeth testily while he blushed heavily once more, hunching his shoulders like a turtle. In the meantime, Jack couldn't decide if he should laugh, or cry in frustration.

Until, all at once, he realised what this meant. He wasn't pregnant with some alien baby that they could put into the next mechanical incubator and give it back to the stupid alien father. This was a completely human baby. Ianto's baby! No matter how this thing between them would proceed in the long run, he knew that Ianto would never allow to abort the child. A single look into Ianto's suddenly determined face told him the younger man's opinion on the matter. And to be honest, Jack wouldn't have had the heart to do it anyway.

What they should do with the baby was another question. You really couldn't raise a kid at Torchwood. 

“Leave us for a moment, would ya,” Jack commanded without taking his gaze from Ianto. Who returned his gaze with deceptive calm while the others left the lab without protest. Hesitantly, Ianto sat next to Jack onto the autopsy table, saying nothing to each other for a while.

“And what should we do now?” Jack asked eventually because one of them had to break the first ground. 

Ianto absolutely refused to look at him, but pressed his lips tightly together. “If you don't want it...”

“ Hey, hey.” Soothingly, Jack hurriedly put his hand on Ianto's, squeezing it gently. “I didn't say that.”

This prompted Ianto to throw Jack a hesitant side glance. Even Jack could read the hopeful gleam in them. “What does this mean?” Ianto asked just to make sure.

Jack sighed, and closed his eyes for a moment before he looked at Ianto firmly once more. “That we... will raise it together... if you want that.”

Despite his hopeful joy, Ianto raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I can't envision you as a family man to be truthful.”

Jack didn't take offence at his scepticism. He himself knew best that he was everything but a good father. “I'm really not, no. But I... would be willing to try... with you.”

Ianto had to swallow heavily because, for him, this declaration implied things which he'd longed to hear from Jack for a while now. “Do you have... other children?”

“ Yes,” Jack replied truthfully.

“ Are they still alive?”

“ I have a daughter in her thirties, and a grandson. The others... are long dead.”

Ianto hesitated visibly to ask Jack more questions, but until now, the other man had been uncharacteristically open in answering questions about his past for a change which was why he wanted to know more. “Why haven't you ever said something?”

Jack hesitated as well while he contemplated how to explain the thing with Alice and her mother the easiest way. “Our relationship is complicated,” he therefore replied simply. 

“ I see.” And with that, the topic was closed for Ianto. If Jack wanted to tell him more some day, he would be delighted, but if not, then he wouldn't hold it against him for keeping his secrets to himself. Jack had always been a person who had difficulties trusting other people one hundred percent, and Ianto wasn't entitled to his secrets. 

“ We'll take it slow,” Jack finally explained objectively. “One step at a time. First let's get the pregnancy and the birth over with, then we can think about the next eighteen years.”

Ianto nodded slowly. “Agreed. But...” He glared firmly at Jack out of the corner of his eye. “There are a few things we have to straighten up beforehand.”

Inwardly amused, Jack raised a questioning eyebrow. He loved it when Ianto became this dominant. “I'm all ears.”

“ Okay.” Ianto cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “During your pregnancy, you will not be staying here at the Hub, under no circumstances. I want you to sleep in a real bed, and not for you to climb the ladder all the time, and... and a bathroom with a tub can't hurt either. I have to insist... Sir.”

Jack chuckled. “Well well, you have to insist.” He looked at Ianto cheekily, but soon realised, based on Ianto's grim look, how serious he was. Jack nodded with a sigh. “Okay,” he agreed. “You want to tell me with this that I should move in with you.”

“Yes.” Ianto hated how much his voice trembled at this one syllable alone, but he couldn't help himself, he was nervous. If Jack would move in with him, it would be like a real relationship between them. Maybe, instead of simply raising the child together, they would actually take this step some day. Ianto only knew too well what he felt for Jack; for him, it wasn't a simple office fling any more, but, although he knew he meant a lot to Jack, he'd never been sure what he really meant to the other man.

Jack nodded again. Secretly, he thought it sweet when Ianto turned into a mother hen. He always was, technically, when he took care of the team's daily needs, but he probably didn't even notice. Jack only had to keep an eye on him so that Ianto wouldn't go overboard with it during the pregnancy. Apart from that, he was fine with it. Ianto needed someone whom he could care for much more than Jack. In the course of this thought, there was something that he probably should make clear to Ianto beforehand. “Listen,” he began, “Don't get me wrong, I've loved all of my children very much, but basically, I could never really strike up a relationship with them. And this won't change now only because this time I am the one bearing it. I won't suddenly turn into some uber-mum.”

Ianto nodded outright. He'd anticipated something like this already. “It's all right,” he assured Jack, and threw him a reassuring, amused smile. “You have me for mothering. That will balance us out.”

Jack returned Ianto's smile with the same amount of amusement. “I know,” he replied, but in the next moment, he became serious again, and he sought eye contact to Ianto. “But like I said, that doesn't mean I don't love this kid... or you.”

Ianto swallowed heavily around the lump constricting his throat, unable to say even one word. His heart pounded like mad while he only could blink at Jack. He'd never have thought that Jack would ever tell him that in the first place, let alone say it first. Their... relationship was never made for this, for deeper feelings, that's what they'd both wanted. At first. 

Spurred by his feelings of happiness, he suddenly was able to act again so that he abruptly leaned over to Jack to kiss him exuberantly. “I love you, Jack Harkness,” he whispered against Jack's lips, relieved to finally have said it.

Jack drew back from Ianto a little, and smiled affectionately at him while lovingly caressing his cheek. “Give me time,” he pleaded softly. “It's been a while since I had a family. I'll learn again to act accordingly.” He'd never got the chance to enjoy family life although he'd always wanted to. His immortality hovered over every one of his serious relationships and marriages like a sword of Damocles, and despite the happy moments together, in the end he was left behind alone. This had deadened him against relationships, the last serious one being the one with Alice's mother, no matter what Alice may think, and even if it had been over really fast. And although he really loved having a family, it couldn't hide the fact that, at the bottom of his heart, he'd always been a reckless, adventurous playboy, as restless as the Doctor, nowhere ever at home. He had always presumed that he would have been different if not for the Time Agency and his immortality... and Grey. If he'd never left the Boeshane Peninsula, he probably would have settled down, and started a family. But not after that day on which he'd lost everything.

“ We have time,” Ianto assured, and joyfully snuggled up to Jack, his head bedded on Jack's shoulder. 

“ How do I deserve you, Ianto Jones,” Jack sighed, and enfolded Ianto in his arms. 

For a few minutes, they held each other tightly, surrounded by the peaceful silence of the lab, the everyday-noises of the Hub a low humming in the background.

 

When, at the early evening, working time drew to a close, Jack send the rest of the team home, and he and Ianto set about packing his few belongings. It felt weird finally leaving the Hub with Ianto, all of his belongings stowed in a single travelling back. He'd lived in the Hub for such a long time under the most spartan circumstances, and he'd never minded. This new, drastic chapter in his life made him nervous. He didn't want to disappoint Ianto. 

But he only could tell himself again and again that, when he finally parked the SUV before Ianto's apartment block, everything would be all right.

He liked Ianto's flat. It was pretty fashionable, seeming like a designer flat, but at the same time, it was still homely and cosy. It reminded Jack of its owner – an extremely caring and tender person hidden behind all those fancy suits, and the professional, impassive mask.

Ianto frowned as he started to unpack Jack's bag, and put his things next to his own clothes in the wardrobe. There wasn't much space; Ianto's countless suits and dress shirts took up most of the space, but since Jack didn't own that many clothes anyway, it would probably work. He easily managed to put the rest of Jack's trousers and shirts besides the few things already in his wardrobe which had found their way in there in case Jack stayed the night. Ianto wouldn't ever tell Jack, but when Jack started to stay at his flat now and then, and eventually even left a few articles of spare clothing, a burning hope had awoken inside of Ianto that maybe one day they would be a real couple. And now the day was here... 

No. Enough of the wool-gathering. He shook his head, and instead turned back to his task which he'd interrupted, a stack of Jack's shirts in his arms while he'd stared motionlessly with a far-away look. He was bothered by a completely different space problem. 

“We don't have any space for a nursery,” he called contemplatively, not sure if he just talked with himself or with Jack. 

“Hm?” Questioningly, Jack stuck his head from the open bathroom door, wherein he's just occupied with finding space for his toiletries. 

“ Nursery,” Ianto repeated, and Jack frowned before he stepped fully into the room. 

He threw his shampoo bottle on the bed, and thoughtfully stemmed his hands in his hips. “It'll work for the time being,” he assured Ianto. “We can look for a bigger flat, or a house some time in the future if you want, but for now, the baby doesn't need a nursery.” He picked the bottle up from the bed again, and returned into the bathroom. “A fussy nursery just serves the purpose of making the yearning, over-sentimental parents happy. The baby doesn't care, at the beginning it only sees colours, not shapes, and babies can't look farther than half a metre anyway.”

“ Sounds suspiciously like Owen,” Ianto called after him, chuckling, and resumed his task of unpacking Jack's things.

“ You can bet on it,” Jack returned loudly from the bathroom, the grin in his voice clearly discernible. “I wouldn't have been that blatant about it, but I agree with him nonetheless.”

Ianto shook his head in amusement. He was touched that Jack seemed to want to go through with the whole thing, house and all. Who cared that he shared Owen's dry, sober opinion. Such sentimentalities weren't ev'rybody's thing, and although Ianto would have liked a nicely furnished nursery, he wasn't the type of guy who crammed a room full of tawdry baby stuff either, walls painted with fluffy animals included. At some point, even he had reached his boundaries.

They would be confronted with something like that early enough because somehow, he harboured the unsettling feeling that there would open up undreamt-of abysses in Tosh and Gwen in the course of Jack's pregnancy, letting those two mutate into squealing, giggling baby enthusiasts.

 

** Chapter 05 **

Sometime over the course of the next few days, Ianto got the uneasy feeling that maybe he was right with his assumption regarding Tosh and Gwen. The two started, hardly subtle, orbiting around Jack like two satellites, never letting him far out of their sight. They constantly asked if he needed something (and thus beating Ianto to it), and obviously began to go easy on him. Jack, naturally, didn't like to be treated like a raw egg, and Ianto feared that at some point, Tosh and Gwen – especially Gwen because she was more persistent – would come to a bad end.

There was one point though, in which he totally agreed with the two women...

“ Where do you think you're going?”

Jack froze, baffled, and looked at Ianto, then at the rest of the team which stood behind the young archivist, glaring at him instead of readying themselves for field work. “Eh...” Thrown, he frowned. “Catching aliens? That's my job, remember.” Irritated, he grabbed for his coat, becoming even more irritated when Ianto didn't show the slightest inclination to gallantly help him inside like usual. 

Instead, his lover just crossed his arms before his chest, and tried to stare him down. “I don't think so, no.”

“ Excuse me?!” Had Jack misheard?!

“ You will kindly park yourself behind your desk for the remainder of the pregnancy.” Now even Owen stabbed him in the back. 

Jack pouted like a stroppy toddler. 

“I'm the boss! You can't tell me what to do in my own Hu-”

“As the doctor in charge in this hovel, I have the final word. Meaning, no field work any more.”

Jack's jaw dropped offended, and he opened and closed his mouth like a helpless fish on land a few times before he looked at Ianto for aid. Which fell on deaf ears though.

“ Be reasonable,” Ianto ordered relentlessly, stepped up to Jack, and took his coat from him. He pressed a placating kiss on his mouth which couldn't appease Jack in the slightest.

“And pray tell, what am I supposed to do for months on end behind my desk?!” he cried after his team irritated which already was on their way to the exit. 

“ Do your paperwork,” Gwen mercilessly called back. “Ya have enough of that after all.”

“Y' could clean up this place a bit,” Owen let loose while Tosh threw a more conciliatory “find yourself an interesting project, a harmless one” over her shoulder.

“ No matter what you do, keep away from my archives,” was the last he got to hear from Ianto before his people disappeared, abandoning him here, his only company a grumpy pterosaur. 

“ My archiving method isn't  _ that _ bad,” he grumbled before he sulkily marched back into his office. Maybe he should call UNIT, he could always let off a lot of steam during these calls. 

 

By now, Jack had resigned himself to his fate to be demoted to Ianto's job (he didn't have an alternative anyway – out of them five, he was obviously the only one who was of the opinion that he as their boss had a say in anything around here any more). Despite that, he thought it wise not to antagonise someone, whose teeth came into regular proximity to beloved body parts, too much. 

Thus, to battle his boredom, the Hub – and even the cells – had never looked this clean (Ianto was a little miffed that Jack had outdone him in his job, but Jack had more than enough time after all to even sweep the backmost corners while Ianto didn't). But what the Hell was he supposed to do otherwise! There was no paperwork any more for now, and he was banned from the phone before he could trigger a war with UNIT. Making coffee was a taboo for him (the same went for drinking it, by the way), not even he (or especially him?) was allowed to come even near Ianto's sacred hightech coffee machine. 

On the other hand, Jack wasn't bored enough yet to voluntarily submit to Owen's weekly examinations. It never ended well if somebody with a medical degree prodded and pricked at him, especially for Jack as he knew from personal experience. 

But of course, he hadn't any say in this aspect of his life either which was why he now lay in Owen's lab on the autopsy table once again.

And why the heck did the others have to perch on the stairs in the meantime, watching the whole spectacle eagerly!?  This wasn't the zoo!

But before Jack could make a snappish remark, Owen's contemplative click-noises sidetracked him which the doctor made while he brooded over one of his sensors.

“ What?” he asked irritated.

“ The child's growing pretty fast,” the doctor explained. “It wasn't really noticeable until now.” He pushed a few buttons, and in the next second, the ultrasound image was projected onto the screen. “You're in the fourth week, but according to the growth rate of the foetus, you're rather ninth or tenth week.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. And this means what, other than that this will be over faster?”

Owen shrugged. “Like you said, it will be over faster, but other than that, there are no changes. Ev'rything will proceed normally.” He patted Jack's shoulder ungently, irritating the other man deeply. “The species which you owe your luck to is obviously even more impatient than you.”

“ Can you recognise the sex yet?” Tosh suddenly intervened diplomatically, but no less jittery, and her interested gaze frequently flitted over to the screen in the hope of making out more on her own. 

Owen just wanted to explain as Gwen beat him to it suddenly, “Wouldn't the baby be male automatically with two male parents?”

Owen's pitying, but at the same time reproaching gaze made her shut up. “What did you do during your biology class in school?” he asked which she answered with a shrug. “The woman contributes the X, while the man throws in either an X or an Y chromosome which decides the sex of the baby, savvy?” Affronted, Gwen stuck out her tongue at him which he ignored deliberately. “Since we're dealing with two men, each of them will contribute either an X, or an Y. You can imagine what will be the result.”

“ Hm,” Gwen made. “So it could be an XX, therefore a girl, or an XY which will be a boy? And what about YY?”

“ That sex doesn't exist ,” Tosh interjected.

“ Under normal circumstances of course not, but in this case...” Contemplatively, Owen crossed his arms before his chest. “An YY-child would be male.”

“ The poor thing would sport a surplus of testosterone.” Tosh shook her head sympathetically. “It would be what? An uber-man?”

Owen shrugged. “Could be. Or it will be born disabled because it's a genetic anomaly. Shall I test it?” He looked at Jack and Ianto who wisely kept shut during this discussion. But now, Ianto nodded jerkily, his lips pressed tightly together and his face ghostly pale. 

“ Okay.” Owen sank onto his chair, and started the tests.

“ Whoa,” he declared barely five minutes later. “It actually is an YY-child.”

“And?” Jack asked impatiently, and sat up again to stare up at the screen on which Owen projected the test results, but most of the readings didn't tell him anything.

“ Physical development normal, vital and brain functions normal... no, wait.” Owen frowned. “Brain functions are above average. They are... virtually perfect.”

“ So...” Ianto hesitated. “You can't make out any evidence for... a mental handicap then?”

“No. On the contrary. This child will be a genius. It already is if you want.”

“ Autistic people are geniuses pretty often,” Tosh threw in softly, but didn't flinch under Jack and Ianto's menacing looks because someone had to voice it after all.

“ Dead right,” Owen agreed. “But there are no indications for that. Like I told you: This child is perfect – genetically, physically, mentally.”

Jack grunted sarcastically. “Hopefully, I'm not breeding a prospective super villain. Ouch.” Grumbling, he rubbed his arm where Ianto'd punched him. “Those people get bored real quick. And the heroes on the other side are very often pretty dumb. I'd rather have a clever child.”

“You watch too many movies,” Ianto hissed while everyone, for the sake of peace and quiet, ignored Owen's cheerful “speaking from experience, Captain America?”.

“ It's a fact,” Jack corrected him unperturbed. 

“ My son will not become a super villain, do I make myself clear!” Ianto flared up, and marched from the lab incensed. 

Jack looked after him with a frown. “Tss,” he made. “Now who's the one with the mood swings. Whatever. If the kid gets my charm, then he can hardly become a super villain.”

“Will become megalomaniac nonetheless if he inherits Jack's ego,” Gwen murmured under bated breath sarcastically.

 

**Chapter 06**

That Gwen and Tosh had mutated to clucking hens, always mothering Jack until he snapped at them, this was something Ianto could abide. But now, they started to drag him into the whole affair which he really could have lived without.

Dignified, he thus ignored Jack's spiteful grin when those two left the Captain alone for a change this morning, and instead hauled Ianto into the car to drag him on a – in their opinion already overdue – shopping trip. 

 

“ Gwen!” Ianto hissed exasperated, and rubbed his temples behind which already spread a horrible headache. “For the last time; we don't have space for this.”

Gwen pouted, and crossed her arms over her chest while she exchanged reproachful looks between Ianto and the huge baby change unit painted in light blue. She snorted. “Then move already.”

“ No,” he clarified tersely, and hoped that the case would be settled with that.

“ Maybe we should rather look at the cots,” Tosh suggested diplomatically, if not with less enthusiasm. 

Ianto nodded briskly, and followed them into another aisle. Before they had time to look around, a clerk with a huge smile in her face came over to them. “May I help you?”

“ Ehm, yeah,” Gwen answered. “We need a cot. But it shouldn't take up too much space, the flat's pretty small.” She threw Ianto a pointed, reproachful look over her shoulder, who just buried his hands into his trouser pockets in a strop.

“ But of course,” the saleswoman smiled. This couldn't be the first time she witnessed such arguments between soon-to-be parents, even if the circumstances this time differed slightly from normal cases. “There's something for every opportunity.” She led the three Torchwood agents over to some smaller models which caused Ianto to breath much easier all of a sudden when he spotted them.

“If I may ask, what will it be?” the woman inquired while the three surveyed the offered furniture. 

Gwen rolled her eyes when Ianto didn't make a move to answer her, and replied in his stead, “A boy.” 

“ Oh, how lovely!”

Ianto rolled his eyes. The woman would have said this regardless of which sex the mothers-to-be carried. Well, maybe when faced with a Weevil baby even her enthusiasm would have died.

“ We have a few very beautiful models. All of them in a lovely light blue for the little prince.” 

“No,” Ianto now stepped in decidedly. Until now, his sense of polite manners had stopped him from answering since he feared that he'd only snarled at the woman in his bad mood – Dear God, he turned into Owen! –, but now he had to put down his foot. The three women blinked at him startled, and he shrugged. “We don't want to take part in all this gender clichés. Girl or boy, it doesn't matter, and we don't want to squeeze our son into any roles. He's free to decide himself how he develops.” Maybe this sounded a little strange now – the gazes he was thrown were according, especially from the saleswoman –, but to Jack, this topic had been important. Otherwise, he kept out of this whole affair, but in that case, he'd explained to Ianto how fundamentally different the roles of the sexes were in the 51 th century, more specifically, how completely void they would become which allowed every person a completely free approach to their sexual identity and sexuality. Jack didn't want to press his son into the restrictive roles of this time. He'd tried with his other children, but times back then had been even more strict and intolerant which was why he had had little success to convince his partners of his believes. Ianto noticed immediately how relieved Jack had been when Ianto not only listened to him attentively, but supported him. 

“ Okay.” Gwen blinked eventually. “Your baby, not mine.”

The saleswoman blinked as well, and seemed to recover from her astonishment. “Oh, I see,” she called out to Gwen. “Then it's you who is the happy mother. And I thought...“ She gazed at Tosh who, when she noticed her look, threw up her hands in defence, shaking her head. “Oh,” the woman made, and looked at Ianto. “Your wife really should accompany you so that you can make this difficult decisions together.” A sudden expression of worry crossed the woman's features. “The expecting mummy is all right, I hope?!”

“ Splendid,” Ianto replied with a forced smile, and added in a snappish mutter, “The expecting mummy is the lucky one to do the paperwork at the moment.” Gwen punched him into the ribs with her elbow when the saleswoman's expression turned more and more confused.

Ianto tried to smile at her in a friendly way. “Not important. So, would you please show us all of the beautiful things you have on offer?”

 

He felt as if he'd aged years when Ianto left the shop three hours later with Gwen and Tosh. The necessary furniture had been ordered, Tosh and Gwen were loaded with shopping bags full of rompers (in yellow and green), caring products, and things Ianto didn't even know what they were supposed to do. Somehow traumatised, he voluntarily slipped onto the back seat to let Gwen drive while clinging to a fat stuffed bumblebee, the only concession he'd made today to toys. 

That Jack, back in the Hub, laughed at him to top it all before he pulled him comfortingly (but still mockingly!) into his arms, wasn't really conducive to his mood. 

“ I had to go through this once upon a time, too,” the older man assured grinning.

“Not like this,” Ianto hissed, and clung more tightly to the plushy bumblebee while pressing deeper into Jack's embrace. “Have you even been to one of these shops in the last thirty years?! Nothing's impossible there, and that in twenty different versions.” He sighed tiredly. “I thought being forced to accompany Rhia during her pregnancies was hell, but this...”

“ Ohh, poor baby.” Jack kissed Ianto's forehead soothingly, but couldn't get rid of the amused grin completely. “I could distract you.”

But Ianto was much too testy and exhausted, which was why he grabbed Jack's wandering hand on its way downwards, and decidedly pulled it away from his ass.  Jack sighed, and pouted in mock insult. “Then lie down for a bit.”

“ Shouldn't it be me telling that to you,” Ianto grunted sarcastically, even if a short afternoon nap sounded heavenly. 

“ I could accompany you.”

Ianto looked at Jack, a touch of worry clouding his gaze, but Jack only grinned at him carefree.

“ After all, I sat behind my desk to do all this horribly tiresome paperwork which is normally handled by my Archivist for me. That really took it out of me.”

“ I feel so sorry for you,” Ianto replied drily, and parted from Jack. “I'll be down in the Archives. All these grey hues down there will do me good. I'm still feeling as if a rainbow exploded before my inner eye.”

“ You want the last doughnut?” Jack called after him. Puzzled, Ianto turned around again to him, and Jack indicated the direction of his desk. He nodded gratefully, and took a beeline for Jack's desk and the colourful cardboard box on it (eeww, colours again) as if magically drawn to it.

While the gloriously sweet taste exploded on his tongue, raising his spirits again together with his blood sugar level, he wasn't sure if he should be more surprised that Owen got food for Jack on his own or that he as his doctor let him eat such unhealthy stuff.

Ianto shrugged, and made a detour to his sacred coffee maker before disappearing down in the Archives.

Since Owen lived on fast food like all the others here, he was compromised in his judgement. Maybe Ianto shouldn't only think of Jack's welfare in the future, but that of the others as well, searching for more healthy alternatives. There was such a thing as healthy fast food after all.

 

“ Jack?”

Inquiringly, the Captain looked up when he passed Gwen's work station.

“ I thought about something,” she began, an enthusiastic smile on her face.

Jack frowned sceptically, but indicated her to continue.

“ I did a little brainstorming for a baby party. Of course, we can't invite that many people, but it would be nice though if...” 

Jack's expression had become cloudier with every of her words so that Ianto, who'd witnessed the whole encounter, thought it best to come closer as a precaution to do damage control if need be.

“ Forget it, Gwen,” Jack eventually cut her off.

Taken by surprise, she blinked at him. “ Why not?”

“ Because I don't want this, that's why.”

Stubbornly, Gwen crossed her arms before her ample chest. “You have to stop seeing your pregnancy as the Last Judgement.” She exchanged pointed looks between the assembled men. “It's a huge reason to rejoice, but you're all so awfully serious, and act like you're carrying God knows what in there...”

“ No!” And with that, he wanted to pass her since the topic was closed for him, but Gwen jumped up in agitation. 

“ But Jack!”

“ No!” He spun around, and glared at her, then at the rest of the team. “The next one who dares to want to put the word 'baby party' into my mouth gets retconned back to his school times.”

Owen grunted sarcastically, and let out an indistinct “thought you liked to take things into your mouth”, but he regretted it in the next minute already when Jack threw him a look so nasty that even the hardened, cynical doctor squirmed under this gaze. 

But Gwen of course once again didn't know when to let it be, and she dashed forward anew. “You men are so insensitive and sober, all three of you!” Gwen cried indignantly, and glared at her three male colleagues. “You don't seem to be happy about this.”

Before Jack could reply something he would later regret, he spun around, and stormed back into his office, swearing loudly. 

„ Of course we're happy, Gwen,“ Owen replied only mildly sarcastic over the loud, clanking noise when Jack's office door banged shut. He glared reproachfully at his colleague. “But you over-egg the pudding.”

For a moment, he and Gwen stared at each other stubbornly before he shrugged indifferently, and went back to his work. “I think this whole fuss is daft anyway. Basically, you only congratulate two people for a successful orgasm.”

“Enough now!” Ianto threw in before Gwen could give a heated answer to that. Sighing, Ianto ignored their doctor, and focussed his attention on Gwen. “Gwen, listen. I know that you're happy, but ease up, okay. Jack doesn't want all of this, and you have to respect that. Our job is stressful enough without his pregnancy wearing us out. Your enthusiasm, as admiring and well-meant it may be, only puts even more pressure on us. Just leave him alone.”

Gwen opened her mouth a few times to say something, but closed it every time. “I,” she stammered finally, obviously with a guilty conscience. “I'm sorry. I didn't want to...”

“ It's all right.” Ianto smiled at her reassuringly. 

She nodded, suddenly embarrassed, and hurried back to her work station.

Sighing, Ianto exchanged glances with Tosh who showed a similar amount of enthusiasm as Gwen, but had herself better under control. “I'm sorry,” she mumbled, and scurried away with hunched shoulders. 

Sighing once more, Ianto threw a gaze in the direction of Jack's office, but then decided against going in and talking to Jack. If he wanted to talk, he knew where to find Ianto. Until then, he would respect Jack's privacy. 

 

** Chapter 07 **

He hadn't exaggerated when he'd told Gwen that the pregnancy wore him out. Not Jack though who felt terrific. The most healthy was his libido which exactly was the problem. Jack was, at normal times, someone who possessed a very distinct sexual appetite, but at the moment, the man was constantly horny. He jumped Ianto every chance – be it appropriate or not – he got; inside the Hub, he often surprised him with a fleeting visit down in the archives, or dragged him into some dark corners – which they had many down there. And Ianto, of course, couldn't say no. At the latest when Jack's irresistible smell reached his nostrils as soon as the other man came near him – much more potent at the moment thanks to all the hormones swirling through his body –, or if he looked at him with puppy eyes, Ianto's resistance was gone completely. Not that he wasn't a willing participant at thei r tête-à-tête  most of the time, but there were days, after an exhausting day full of Weevils and Rift activity, where he had to literally fall back on to the advice of their founder: Lay back and think of Torchwood.

Ianto just desperately wished for the clichéd, but at least for himself harmless food cravings.

But other than that, he couldn't deny that he enjoyed the whole situation. Living together with Jack turned out to be surprisingly fulfilling and enjoyable although Jack was a slob most of the time, therefore being the complete opposite to Ianto. It felt like a real relationship, and soon, they would be a real family, too.

Jack loved the living-together adventure as well because at home, he suddenly didn't mind being coddled any more at all (at least within reasonable bounds) because Captain Jack Harkness could be a right attention whore if he wanted to, and at the prospect of Ianto's complete loving attention, he definitely wanted.

So, actually, everything in Ianto's life turned out to his complete satisfaction at the moment. If there wasn't an aspect of his life from outside Torchwood. 

This aspect currently kept him on the phone for a solid ten minutes, trying to talk him into a guilty conscience because he hadn't let hear from himself for such a long time (he'd known that there had to be disadvantages to not working over the weekends any more, you could be reached at home much too easily). 

“ I have to work, Rhia,” he sighed for the second time already. 

Patiently, he listened to the reciprocating rant of his sister, and once in a while exchanged glances with Jack, seeking help. But Jack only watched him in amusement, and perked up with interest every time Ianto changed into Welsh during the conversation – after all, you could swear so much better in Welsh than in English.

“ Hm, yes,” he relented finally. “I'll see what my boss has to say to that.” Said boss threw him a big grin which Ianto ignored deliberately this time. “Bye, Rhia.”

Relieved, he finally hung up, and stared at the phone before him for a moment, lost. 

So, it was hardly surprising that he jumped heavily when Jack turned up unexpectedly close behind him, bringing his arms around him, his swollen stomach pressed tight and warm against Ianto's back.

“You realise what it does to me you speaking Welsh,” he made clear in a suggestive growl close to Ianto's ear.

Ianto shuddered, and moaned softly when Jack took his hand, guiding it backwards, to lay it on his erection. He squeezed gently which wrenched a throaty groan from Jack in turn, and relaxedly lay his head back on Jack's shoulder because in the meanwhile, the clever hands of the Captain had descended into more interesting areas. With lazy, hypnotic movements, Jack massaged his lover through his tight jeans (a view which was pretty unfamiliar as of yet to Jack, but no less fantastic) until he was completely hard. 

But at some time, Jack got impatient, and he steered Ianto over to the couch, pushing him down on it enthusiastically. He knelt next to the sofa, and made short work of Ianto's trousers until he finally could drag them from his legs including his underwear, letting the articles of clothes fall next to him on the floor. In a fluid move, he stood up, slipped off his sweatpants and boxers, tore the T-shirt over his head, and straddled Ianto. Both men moaned when Inato's cock pushed itself between Jack's buttocks. 

Frantically, Ianto clung to Jack's waist, and snapped up his hips. Once more, they groaned breathlessly when the head of Ianto's cock dipped into Jack's hole for a few millimetres before the tightly closed muscle denied him further entrance.

He shoved Ianto's T-shirt up – the only article of clothing he still wore – to get access to his nipples. While worrying the right one with his fingers, he closed his lips around the other, sucking firmly so that Ianto arced his body into Jack's mouth with a cry.

“ Jack!” Ianto gasped, and enacted into a stream of Welsh exclamations which made Jack moan when he heard this. With a little difficulty, he sat up again, and fixated Ianto with his feverish gaze. 

“ Oh God, Ianto!” he groaned breathlessly while the fingers of his right hand run restlessly through Ianto's chest hair, and at the same time, he dived for the lube into the depths of the sofa gab with the other. “Say that again.”

A heavy shudder run through him when the melodic Welsh sounds, wrapped into Ianto's pleasant baritone, rolled over him. His fingers gripped the tube of lube convulsively, unable to move one bit in this second. 

“ I don't know what this means, but you could read the bible to me in Welsh, and it still would make me hot,” Jack finally declared with a trembling voice while his quivering fingers were busy with the seal of the tube.

“Careful, Sir,” Ianto chuckled, but his coolness rapidly cracked as well when he saw Jack kneeling over him, his flawless skin covered in a fine sheen of sweat, flushed and aroused while preparing himself. “That's blasphemy.”

Jack answered him with a breathless laugh which turned almost immediately into an almost obscene moan when he breached himself with a third finger. 

“Jaaack!” For a change, it was Ianto who became whiny with impatience and unsatisfied lust. 

But since Jack, normally not averse to have Ianto on the hook, couldn't await it any more either to feel his lover inside of him, he swiftly coated Ianto's cock with lube, squatted over his crotch, and finally sank down onto the hard flesh. Both men took shaky breaths when Ianto breached him, and Jack only stopped moving downwards when he'd taken Ianto fully inside his body. Breathing heavily, they were poised in this position to just feel each other for a moment. 

“ Jack,” Ianto breathed after what felt like an eternity into the silence, and grabbed for Jack's hands to link them with his own. Jack met his burning gaze with the same intensity, grabbed Ianto's hands harder, and started moving up and down slowly in his lap.

The whole time, they held eye contact, the intensity and intimacy of this moment almost unbearably. 

Jack gasped strangled when Ianto thrust his hips upwards, directly hitting his prostate. Ianto thrust two, three times more before the tight pressure at his prostate send Jack into orgasm, followed by Ianto only a few seconds later who was catapulted into climax by the rhythmic contractions around his cock. 

With all the remaining strength he possessed, Ianto sat up, and took Jack into his arms to help him lie down. Carefully, he turned them both around until they comfortably lay pressed tightly together on the couch, Ianto against Jack's back while his arms surrounded him, his spent cock surprisingly still lodged inside of Jack's body despite all the twisting and wriggling so as if the older man didn't want to let his lover go. Absent-mindedly, Ianto caressed Jack's stomach while they regained their breath, and every time he felt his son moving under Jack's skin, little shocks of surprised happiness ran through him. A little scary somehow, but on the other hand wonderful. 

“ Will you tell your sister?” Jack asked some time into the relaxed silence while he enjoyed the feeling of Ianto's body pressed against his, and being caressed by his hands. 

Ianto huffed in amusement which made Jack flinch when Ianto's warm breath tickled him behind his ear. “What? Me becoming a father?”

Jack nodded mutely, and reached for Ianto's fingers on his stomach to play with them absent-mindedly.

Irritated, Ianto pulled his fingers out of Jack's grip, and entwined them with each other instead. “And what should I tell her with whom I will have this child?!” 

“ Hm, that's a problem of course. But you could tell her that we decided upon a surrogate mother.”

Ianto sighed heavily, and buried his face in Jack's neck. Even though he knew that he didn't have a choice, he absolutely didn't want to have this conversation. 

“ Jack. She doesn't even know you exist.”

“ When was the last time you've called her?” he called out before he could stop himself. 

Jack immediately noticed that he had stirred up a hornet's nest when Ianto's whole body froze behind him. In placation, he kissed Ianto's fingers that were interlaced with his. After all, he was one to talk. He wasn't first in line for family guy of the year either when it came to Alice.

“ You don't understand, Jack,” Ianto explained reluctantly after a while. “You don't simply come out in the environment I grew up in. I can imagine Rhia's disbelieving look all too vividly. And even more so that of my brother-in-law...” Ianto shuddered involuntarily. “You're from a much more tolerant time. You didn't grow up with homophobic idiots.“

“ True,” Jack had to concede. “But you seem to forget that I've lived longer in the past of this planet than the future of my home. I have witnessed some of the darkest times for homosexuals in the twentieth century, but did it kill me... well, the once.”

Ianto grunted cynically. “Not more?”

“ I've been killed for all kinds of things,” Jack stated peeved. “Not only because I couldn't rein in my instincts – or my charm.”

“ Hear, hear,” Ianto chuckled.

“ The point is,” Jack turned their conversation back in the right directions, “that of course there's still intolerance in this world. It will take a while for that to not be a problem any more, but this is not about us. It's about our son and your family. He should get to know as much of his relatives as possible.”

Jack didn't need to voice the “in case”. In case something happened to Ianto, in case Jack should disappear again... 

Ianto nibbled on his bottom lip for a few frustrated moments because he realised only too clearly how right Jack was. But nonetheless, he felt cornered so that he saw defence as the only option. “And when are you gonna tell your daughter?“

This made Jack fall silent for a little while. “That's not fair,” he stated finally. “Alice can't stand me.”

“ She will hate you even more if you keep this from her,” Ianto retorted.

“ Not as much as your sister will hate you if you keep her nephew from her.”

“ Hmpf. If you tell Alice, I will tell Rhia.”

Jack sullenly kept silent once more. “That's your last word, hm.”

“ It is.”

Jack sighed. “All right,” he relented. “I don't want to meddle in your family affairs.”

Satisfied with his triumph, Ianto huffed, making Jack shudder again when the harshly ejected gust hit his neck. 

“ Let's not fight about this,” Ianto pleaded after a while. “The Rift is conspicuously silent, and it's a weekend. Let's take advantage of that as long as we can.” 

Jack nodded. He would have liked to kiss Ianto, but didn't want to muster up the energy needed to turn around arduously. Instead, he once more kissed Ianto's fingers, and let himself sink into Ianto's embrace, completely relaxed.  “What do you wanna do?”

“ We haven't much possibilities left,” Ianto murmured thoughtfully, and caressed Jack's heavily swollen stomach. The more Jack's pregnancy progressed, and with it becoming more obvious, the more he tried to avoid the public. Better not risk anything. 

“ Then let's lie here for a little while more.”

In answer, Ianto pulled the blanket from the backrest down to spread it over them. 

 

** Chapter 08 **

“Sir, we have a guest,” Ianto announced over his headset while he led said guest down into the Hub. Arriving there, they were eagerly awaited by an euphoric Jack. 

“ Martha Jones!” he cried in delight, and he spread his arms out enthusiastically in the hope that she would follow his invitation, and rush into his arms. 

Unconsciously, through his wide spread arms, he presented her with a perfect view of his swollen stomach.

“ Ehm... Jack...” Martha blinked stupidly, and just then Jack realised what she was staring at. 

His delight of seeing her again a little dampened, he lowered his arms, and looked sheepishly at his stomach. “Oh yeah... that.”

Martha crossed her arms before her chest, and glared at Jack expectantly with a raised eyebrow. 

Disappointed, Jack stuck his hands into his trouser pockets, and studied the ground before him petulantly since he was denied an embrace.

“I'll make some coffee for our guest,” Ianto declared some time into the oppressive silence. “Then, you can explain everything to Dr. Jones in peace.” He threw Jack a pointed look which told him that Ianto definitely wouldn't be the one explaining ev'rything to Martha, which Jack returned sulkily. To be on the safe side, he addressed Martha once more before he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen niche. “And you better hug him before he strains something.”

After Martha complied with Ianto's request with a barely suppressed chuckle on her lips, she let Jack lead her into his office where he dutifully explained what happened.

In the meantime, Ianto slipped into the office soft-footed to bring coffee for their guest and tea for his boss – much to Jack's disgust. That he could convince Ianto to stay since this concerned him, too, raised his spirits again slightly. And he even got through with pulling Ianto – under indignant protest – onto his lap where the young man balanced with the utmost dignity on Jack's right thigh, Jack's arms slung tightly around his waist, while Jack once in a while buried his nose discretely in Ianto's neck to breath in the blissful odour of Ianto and (denied) coffee. 

“ And when are you due?” Martha asked while she scrutinized Jack blatantly, chuckling inside, but baffled about the profound changes he'd gone through, how affectionate and openly needy for contact he'd become without even noticing. “Can't be long now, right.”

“ I'm six months along,” Jack confirmed. 

Martha stared at him with big eyes. Did he expect twins!?

Jack, interpreting her confusion correctly, hurried to enlighten her. “The pregnancy proceeds faster than normal. Owen estimates the due date for next week, or at the latest the week after that. You see, your timing coming here was perfect.”

“Wow,” Martha chortled, a little overwhelmed though, and sank back into her chair. She took a long drink of her coffee to regain her composure (Ianto's coffee really was fantastic, so, from this perspective, she could understand Jack's grumpiness because he wasn't allowed any) before scrutinising the parents-to-be. They looked really happy and content, no matter that the pregnancy essentially was an accident at work. She chuckled inside. Typical Torchwood. But she was happy for them. Jack had told her of Ianto while they had to hide from the Master at the beginning of the year that never was before venturing onto the  _ Valiant _ . He'd spoken with so much affection of the young Archivist, but at the same time, he'd left no doubts that it wasn't really serious between them. Apparently, Jack had given a lot of thought to his feelings during this one year of torture and loneliness while having to live with the terrible certainty that the Master'd murdered Ianto. He seemed to have come to the conclusion that maybe he felt more for Ianto than mere lust. Good for him. He really did deserve happiness.

“ Well,” she finally said, and clapped excitedly. “Will you let me examine you?”

Jack grinned at her suggestively. “As long and as thoroughly as you want,” he purred, and earned himself a respective exasperated-amused eye roll from both Jones', although they had counted on such a reply to Martha's question naturally. 

“ You coming with?” Jack asked Ianto, and let himself be pulled up from his office chair. “There can't be enough Jones' around me. It's like Christmas.“

Ianto shook his head with a chuckle, and only endured Jack's suggestive hand on his bottom because Martha couldn't see Jack's antics from her position. “I have to pass for the moment. I'm happy about every opportunity at which I can hand you over to somebody else.” 

He ignored Jack's indignant “hey!”, and kissed him instead – regardless of Martha's presence – to take the edge off his comment. 

“ Your loss,” Jack stated haughtily, and squeezed harder, so that Ianto had to suppress an unmanly squeal. Irritated, he took Jack's hand from his behind, and glared at him over his shoulder. 

With an indulgent shake of the head, he watched Jack and Martha leave the room before he attempted to pick up the used mugs.

 

“ Fascinating,” Martha murmured while she stared mesmerised at the ultrasound picture on the wall. 

“ Hm.” Jack made a nondescript noise in response. She threw him a quick look, but he only continued to stare spellbound at the picture showing his almost fully developed son.

“ This will be quite the change, hm,” she said softly, and rolled next to him with her chair to compassionately take his hand in hers. 

He shrugged, trying hard to seem indifferent. “It's not the first child I'll have.”

“ But the first you'll bear yourself.”

“ That doesn't make a difference.”

“ Then...” Uncertain, Martha gnawed at her bottom lip. “Then the first you have with a person you really love and with whom you actually want to raise the kid?”

He looked at her in surprise, for a moment indecisive what he should answer.

Martha shrugged. “I know your file of course, and I know about your children,” she mumbled as if with a bad conscience. “And I also know that the relationships to the children's mothers broke one way or the other.” 

Jack sighed, and looked up to the screen once more, but then decided to be honest with her. They'd gone through too much together to not be truthful with each other now. “I loved these women – and men –, mind you,” he began. “Usually, at least. But the majority of them didn't know about my immortality. So, to keep it a secret, I left them eventually.”

“ Why?”

Jack looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Try explaining to someone that you are immortal. And that in the early twentieth century. They would have imprisoned me, and experimented on me.” He made a bitter noise. “Torchwood  _ did _ experiment on me.” He shrugged, but Martha could see how much this still hurt him. “It wasn't always for my families' safety – even if many never understood me leaving them, and even fewer forgave me –, but also for my own. You would think that it doesn't hurt any more after all this time to be called a freak.”

He fell silent, and both of them had to think of the Master who'd called Jack a freak as well all the time. Probably even the Doctor thought about him like that, even if he phrased it nicer because, honestly, “you are wrong” basically was just a kind euphemism for freak.

“My own girlfriend, the mother of my daughter, looked upon me as a freak which is why she took our daughter, and went into hiding. She thought I was dangerous. Yet, she should have known better. She was as much a part of Torchwood as me.”

Bitterly, he shook his head. “Ultra catholic Italians. I vowed to never get involved again with one of those as early as the 1920's.”

Martha frowned. “How can you work for Torchwood, and still believe in God?”

“ You can't. That's the reason Lucia left. She'd seen too much godless things, including me.”

“But Ianto doesn't feel that way.” It wasn't a question. She barely knew Ianto, and Jack hadn't told her much about him while being on the run, but for everybody who looked closely, it was obvious what Ianto felt for Jack, how unconditional his love and loyalty for Jack were although he knew of his secret. Apparently, he wasn't afraid of it, he didn't see Jack as a freak, but, selfless like Martha had come to know him, he suffered with Jack because he knew that one day, the Captain would be alone again.

A smile stole involuntarily on Jack's face as he thought about Ianto. “No,” he confirmed Martha's assessment promptly. “Not him. He tries to be with me when I die. And when I wake up again. He holds me tight so that I don't have to wake up alone like when the Doctor just up and left after I died for the first time back then.”

Jack didn't want to admit it, but being alone was his greatest fear. And Ianto had sensed this instinctively even without knowing what had happened to Jack. And if he couldn't prevent Jack from spending eternity alone, he did everything in his power to make sure that Jack wasn't alone when he was yanked back into life.

“He knew who I am, just now,” Martha realised a little surprised, thus changing the topic.

Jack shrugged. “I told him about you.” He turned his gaze away. “I told him ev'rything.”

Jack looked up again as Martha froze beside him. He met her surprised gaze. 

“ What?” he asked a little defensive, but Martha just shook her head, and instead turned to the devices once more to hide her smile. If there was something that showed that there was more between them than a simple affair, that  _ Jack _ saw more in it than an affair with consequences, then it was the fact that he trusted Ianto that much to have told him about the lost year. But before she could reply something to this, the alarm sounded. 

“ There're the others,” Jack explained quickly, and jumped from the autopsy table in relief, glad to end this in depth conversation for the time being. Enthusiastically, he grabbed Martha's hand, and pulled her up the stairs. “Come. I'll introduce you.”

The others awaited them upstairs, briefed through Ianto already that they had a guest. 

“ Doctor Martha Jones,” he introduced her proudly. “She's from UNIT.” Frowning, he turned to Martha again. “By the way, you still haven't told me why you're here. Don't get me wrong, yearning for me is always a good reason, but...” He broke off grinning when she punched him against the shoulder in gentle reproach, her grin equally as broad. “Believe it or not, I'm actually here for business.”

“ Okay, I'm all ears.”

 

After Martha had brought them up to date about the mysterious killings because of toxic shock – from which they had, surprisingly, already two on their autopsy table – as well as the missing medical patient data, there wasn't any time for flirting and banter any more for the time being. At least not for Jack. Instead, Owen was the one to go for it, but at least, he and Martha worked well together. No territorial fights or jealousies from Owen's side. Accordingly fast, the both of them found out that somebody not only killed these people, but tried to cover their tracks as well.

The whole team worked non-stop, even more when they found another victim. Only the hint of the surviving victim and her following violent death led them on to the trail of the Pharm and Reset. Jack wanted nothing more than to drive to the Pharm himself, and deal with Copley, but other than that his team would never let him go, Jack himself thought it wise for a change not to turn up in a medical research facility heavily pregnant asking uncomfortable questions. 

Heavy-hearted, he had to send Ianto and Owen which returned without any noteworthy results though. He became even more grumpy when he let Martha talk him into sending her undercover in there, but in the end, he didn't have another choice. And if there was anyone he trusted one hundred percent in a dangerous situation like that, then it was Martha Jones.

 

“ So... Jack asked me if I could get you a UNIT cap to wear.” Martha grinned at Ianto mischievously after he had briefed her about their tactic concerning the Pharm.

The young man blinked at her impassive for a moment before he smiled at her drily. “Did he? Well, red is my colour...”

Indeed. She let her gaze roam unashamedly over his suit-clad body when he climbed the steps of the autopsy bay. The magenta-coloured shirt looked indeed really good on him. Even if Martha suspected that when Jack planned to outfit Ianto with a UNIT cap, he would forgo any further impairing articles of clothing. 

“He told me about you,” she explained, and Ianto stopped his exit to turn around again questioningly. “Back in the day when we travelled with the Doctor...” She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Ianto chuckled. “We... dabble.”

“ So what's his dabbling like?” She just had to ask. After all, they were talking about Captain “irresistible” Jack Harkness. Who wouldn't want to know.

Ianto threw her a mischievous, secret little smile. “Innovative.”

“ Really,” she grinned breathlessly. 

He bend down to her over the bannister. “Bordering on the avant garde,” he stage-whispered. 

She giggled. She could visualise it clearly, in technicolour and 3D. But in the next moment, she became more serious again. “And now?” she asked gently. 

Ianto's gaze transformed as well, and a longing expression drew over his features. “Now...” He shrugged a little helplessly. “Now ev'rything's different...”

Martha smiled at him. “I'm so happy for you.”

Shyly, he returned her smile, and after an embarrassedly mumbled “thanks”, he once more put on his professional mask. “So, shall we get your cover story sorted?”

 

“ No chance you come with us!” Ianto cried indignantly, and engaged in a fierce battle of facing each other down with Jack. 

“ I send her in there. I've got to save her.”

They stared at each other deviantly for a further few moments until, finally, Ianto relented. Sighing, he let his shoulders drop. He knew that he wouldn't dissuade Jack from his plans, and if he was honest with himself, he could understand how he felt. “Okay,” he finally relented softly, but then brought up the strength again to glare at Jack. “But you keep back, understood! You won't put yourself at any risk. Let's deal with this.”

Jack nodded severely. “Promise.”

Ianto returned the nod jerkily, and resisted the urge to put his hand on Jack's stomach. Instead, he turned on his heel to fetch the SUV and Billy Davis' corpse. He only hoped that Tosh's plan worked, and that it would bring them on the Pharm's compound undetected.

 

“Do it.” Jack watched as Tosh shut down the whole facility via her laptop, delivering these aliens from their suffering, and rendering Copley's work void. Who'd gotten away unfortunately, but they would catch him again. Martha's life had been more important at that time.

Jack shuddered as a cold shudder ran down his back. He still felt Copley's maniac, interested gaze on him. If the man had had the opportunity, Jack was sure that he would have locked him up like the captive creatures to experiment on him. He didn't want to imagine what this madmen would have done to his unborn son.

With a distanced, clinical gaze he supervised his team herding up the Pharm staff while the evacuation warning echoed over the whole compound. 

“ Okay, let's go.” His job here was done, he just wanted to be as far away from here as possible. This place gave him the creeps. He turned to the SUV. 

“ Did you really think I would let you get away with that?”

The team spun around when they heard Copley's voice behind them. They froze when he confronted them with a drawn gun that he'd aimed at Martha. 

“ You've ruined everything I've worked for,” he hissed, steadily drawing nearer. On instinct, Jack put himself between Martha and Copley, ignoring Ianto's cautionary, panicky cry. The others didn't understand. He  _ had _ to protect her. And maybe there was enough of a conscience left in Copley that he wouldn't endanger the life of an unborn child. 

But then, Owen stepped between them, and tried to make Copley see reason. 

“ I know you don't want to shoot,” Owen said convinced, his arms up nonetheless, and stared at Copley beseechingly, calling upon his common sense.

Then a shot tore through the nightly silence. 

His team shrieked, and he heard Ianto calling his name. Blazing pain spread out from his chest into his whole body. His sight got blurry suddenly, and he distantly registered Owen falling to the ground before him. At the same time, a second shot rang through the night, and Copley went down lifelessly, too.

Then, Jack felt Ianto's arms around him. Good, because his knees suddenly gave in. Carefully, Ianto brought him down to the ground, and held him tight. He cried out when the pain got worse. He looked down, and, blinking heavily, made out the red spot spreading over his light blue shirt. It hurt so damn fierce, but he didn't have the strength any more to wonder about the consequences of this red spot. He realised himself that he was in shock.

“ Ev'rything will be all right,” Ianto whispered over and over again. He realised that he rather wanted to calm down himself with this than Jack, but he couldn't help himself. “Help him, Martha!” he screamed nearly hysterical.

For a moment, she looked undecided between Owen and Jack, but then decided to help Jack while Tosh and Gwen bolted over to Owen. Martha fell to her knees beside Jack, the doctor's case from the SUV in her hand. 

With utterly calm fingers, she plunged a needle into Jack's heart to stimulate it, then she grabbed for pain meds. His breathing calmed down immediately, giving Ianto new hope, but one look into Martha's face crushed it instantly.

“ He won't make it,” she explained through clenched teeth while she took a scalpel out of her doctor's case, pushing Jack's shirt up to his chest with her other hand. “I have to deliver the baby  _ now _ . If he dies...”

She didn't have to keep on talking. Ianto was aware what would happen should Jack die while still carrying their son. The baby would simply disappear as soon as Jack awoke, every wound and disturbing factor his body may have received healed. “Do it.” He nodded shakily, and held Jack tighter. He grasped for Jack's hand, squeezing it. God, he was so unbelievably furious with Jack for putting himself in danger like that... and he was so fucking scared...

As if through cotton wool, he heard Tosh's sudden choked cry of desperation, and Ianto closed his eyes. He pressed his cheek against Jack's head, and breathed in his scent. He had to cling to the life that needed saving. He mustn't think of the one they'd lost just now. “We'll manage, do you hear me,” he whispered. “Stay with me. Only a little bit.” He carded his fingers through Jack's sweat-soaked hair, and kissed his cheek while tears ran down his face unchecked. “And when you wake up, our son is here, hm. Then we're a real family...” But Jack didn't notice Ianto's words any more. He was on the verge of losing consciousness. “Only a little bit,” he whispered once more emphatically.

As if standing beside himself, he watched Martha slice open Jack's stomach with a  single clean cu t. Hurriedly, she dropped the scalpel, and reached into the gaping wound with steady hands. Only seconds went by before she pulled out a squirming baby that immediately vented its displeasure over this treatment at the top of its lungs. 

“ Look,” Ianto whispered into Jack's ear, and they both watched Martha cutting the umbilical cord, and wrapping the baby in a blanket. “Look at our son. You did it.”

Jack made a choked noise, then he became still in Ianto's arms all at once.

The young man didn't move while holding Jack tight, not even to take his son into his arms, although there was nothing he wanted more. For a few moments, silence reigned around them, the only sounds Tosh and Gwen's sobbing, and the angry harrumphing of the baby.

Ianto tightened his hold around Jack when he suddenly reared up with a gasping breath. He held the struggling body down, waiting until Jack calmed down again, and was in control of himself. 

Jack coughed, and at the same time desperately tried to draw air into his lungs. He felt Ianto's arms around himself, holding him safe and tight so that he was overcome with sudden calm. He knew that everything was all right when Ianto held him. Then, he knew he wasn't alone. 

The squawking sounds of a baby made him pull himself together, and he focussed his gaze on Martha who knelt next to him with a bundle in her arms. Then it came back to him. He'd been shot. Obviously, his condition had been grave enough that Martha was forced to deliver. He looked down onto his undamaged, flat stomach. For once, it actually wasn't such a bad thing to have succumbed to his injuries since it spared him the painful recovery process. Better than any personal trainer of some Hollywood star would have been Owen's witty comment to that, and Jack waited with anticipation for a similar sarcastic comment of the medic every second now. 

And then he remembered. It hadn't only been him who'd been shot. Primarily, the shot had been for Owen. The bullet went through him, and hit Jack. He remembered watching Owen go down as if through a fog when he himself went down, too.

“Owen!” he panted, panic-stricken, and wriggled from Ianto's hold. He leaped at Owen's side, but one look into the lifeless face told him that it was too late. Shaking, he reached for Owen's motionless body, and pulled him into his arms, rocking him gently, although it should rather be his child which he cradled in his arms instead of a dead friend. Desperately, he threw a look over his shoulder at Ianto who received the baby into his arms, pressing it tightly against his chest. Their gazes met, both of them with tears in their eyes, and full of desperation. He looked at Gwen and Tosh who still knelt at Owen's side, Gwen, being distraught herself, cradling a hysterically weeping Tosh. 

He looked down again into Owen's serene face. 

 

Numbly, Ianto stared into the night, its bright lights swirled by the car's window. Not even once had he let got of the baby since Martha'd put it into his arms, and with every passing second, he was painfully aware of the body in the back of the car. Soon, he would have to surrender the baby to Martha so that she could examine it properly... and so that he and Jack could take Owen's body into the autopsy room. 

They were all as if stunned when they exited the SUV in the underground garage of the Hub – for a change, Gwen had sat behind the steering wheel since Jack was still much too weak from his death and resurrection for him to bring them all back safely. Ianto pulled himself together, and lay the baby into Martha's waiting arms who, once inside, immediately started to check it over. The others followed her. 

He remained alone with Jack. For a moment, they stood next to the SUV, lost, until Jack suddenly started to move, stepping up to Ianto. He pulled him into his arms, and Ianto let himself sag against him in relief. He felt Jack's tears dripping onto his neck while his own drenched Jack's blood-soaked shirt. 

“ We never decided on a name,” Jack broke through the desperate silence between them, his voice sounding choked and scratchy.

Ianto took a shaky breath,  and sniffled. “Gwilym,” he stated promptly, and he felt Jack's lips on his temple in a tender kiss. 

“Of course it has to be a Welsh name,” Jack teased which even worked, eliciting a strangled laugh from Ianto. Sobered, Jack continued, “Good choice.”

For a few precious moments, they simply held each other in silence, and tried to forget the world around them, giving each other strength. 

“ Let's...”

“ Yes.” Ianto drew back from Jack, and looked at him. Both had composed themselves, their professional expressions back in place so that they could do what had to be done. 

They turned to the SUV.

 

** Chapter 09  **

Ianto was so unbelievably relieved to have Gwil to whom he could cling to. The baby slept peacefully in his arms after he'd fed it after Martha's examination, not noticing any of the anguish and pain around him. In Gwil's world, everything was all right. 

At least one of them had no worries tonight.

Wrapped in heavy silence, the others looked down into the autopsy bay where Owen's body was laid out, and where Martha made the last arrangements for the autopsy.

Ianto realised that he should take Gwil somewhere else, and he himself wasn't sure if he wanted to stay for the autopsy at all, but he stood there as if frozen in place, still as numb as during their drive back since now he didn't have anything else keeping him standing. 

Martha's voice as she spoke into the microphone over the autopsy table to document the course of the autopsy sounded as if he had cotton in his ears. Only Jack's abrupt “Stop! Nobody touches him till I get back, is that clear!” jolted him from his stupor. He flinched, but pulled himself together immediately so as not to wake Gwil. Uncomprehending, everyone blinked at Jack who was already gone again though.

He left a deeply confused team. For a few seconds, they all stood frozen, but gradually, they were filled with new life. For the time being, Tosh remained where she was to watch over Owen, but the rest left the lab immediately. Finally, Ianto could bring himself to take Gwil to a more appropriate place. Reluctantly, he put the sleeping baby into the cradle in Jack's office they'd bought for emergencies. He stayed next to the cradle the whole time, and watched his sleeping son, but when Jack eventually returned with a mysterious old wooden box, dirty and bloody, he left Gwil in the safety of Jack's office to do his job.  A switched on headset mounted to the cradle and connected to Ianto's substituted for a baby alarm, and would tell him if something was wrong with Gwil. 

 

Ianto didn't know from whom Gwil had got this unswerving calm, from him or from Jack, but he was glad about it because miraculously, the baby'd slept through the whole horrible turmoil following in the course of this night. He didn't even stir when Death himself wandered the halls of the Hub. But since no-one wanted to take a chance, Ianto had stayed with Gwil inside the Hub, while the others had taken Martha to hospital. He could do research from here as well, where he knew his son was safe, far away from Death.

As by another, even greater miracle, they all survived the night more or less unscathed. Well, Owen was still undead, but he could still grouch like a champion, so the damage was kept within bounds for now. 

At dawn, Jack sent everybody home. He personally took Martha to her hotel to make sure that she arrived there safe and sound, and the same went for Owen whom they dropped off at his flat before they drove home themselves.

The silence of the flat almost seemed eerie, so unreal and peaceful was it after all the horror of the last few hours. 

And here, in the sanctuary of their home, Jack finally found the time to hold his son in his arms for the first time. Since the events on the Pharm started going over their heads, he didn't even have had time to feel longing to hold his child, there just hadn't been a quiet minute for it.  He wouldn't have been able to rest before he didn't know that his team was safe. 

Now, he looked down onto the sleeping baby, which started to stir for the first time since yesterday evening. For some reason, Gwil scrunched up his small noise disgruntled, looking exactly like Ianto when he caught Jack unauthorised in hi s Archives.

Jack sighed softly as Ianto came up behind him, bringing his arms around his belly, and looking down at Gwilym over Jack's shoulder. 

“ I'm sorry,” Jack whispered without taking his eyes from Gwil.

“ What are you sorry for?”

Jack swallowed heavily, and took a shaky breath. “That I only now find time for him.” 

“ Jack...” Ianto brushed a loving kiss against Jack's neck, and drew his arms more tightly around him. “I'm well aware that your first priority has to be the safety of the planet and that of your team, your family. And I wouldn't want it any other way. The world needs you.  _ We _ need you, Gwilym included.” Ianto stepped around Jack to be able to look at him. “As long as you find some time for your son during the less apocalyptic times instead of chasing after every Weevil you stumble over, I'm content.”

Jack looked hard at Ianto for a long time who just returned his questing gaze calmly.  Then he leaned forward, and kissed Ianto deeply. 

“ I don't deserve you, Ianto Jones,” he whispered.

Ianto gifted him with a small chuckle. “I think you do. And now come on.” He gently pushed Jack in the direction of the bedroom. “Good for him that he slept through the almost end of the world, but now we need sleep, too.”

Jack nodded, and allowed Ianto to take him to bed.

 

Over the course of the next three days, the team was in a strange limbo between unease, residual grief, happiness, and the hectic of their every day job. Everyone moved around Owen like on eggshells because on the one side, Gwen and Tosh were eager to help him and give comfort, but on the other hand, they rather kept their distance as he attacked everyone like an aggressive animal in his frustration about his temporary suspension and all of Martha's tests he did have to endure. Especially his relationship to Jack was strained, but it was the confrontation with Ianto in front of the coffee maker which made him storm from the Hub in a rage.

 

Exhausted, Jack scrubbed a hand over his face, and threw a renewed look at the CCTV of the bay. He really didn't know how to deal with this whole situation in the long run. Not while Owen was as stable as a batch of plutonium. He desperately wanted him back on the team, but Owen's current state of mind made that impossible. Jack hoped that the young doctor would get used to his new form of existence rather quickly, going back to his usual biting sarcastic self.

Involuntarily, Jack flinched as tender hands landed on his shoulders, starting to massage the tightly wound muscles with firm pressure. He felt himself relax with every skilful pinch.

After a while, he leant his head back against Ianto's chest, closing his eyes, and sighing in contentment when Ianto's hands brushed through his hair, and caressed his face. So close to his nose, he could smell Ianto's come on his fingers, a residue of the hot wank Ianto had performed earlier for him in the Archives, Jack safely ensconced up here in his office, watching over the CCTV. Although he loved their little games via CCTV, he often, and surely now, preferred Ianto being here with him so he could touch him, smell him, taste him, hear his sighs and moans. Overwhelmed with sudden need, he turned his head a little, and drew one of Ianto's fingers into his mouth, the heady smell hitting his nostrils more potently even if unfortunately there was no taste left, only the weak memory of musky saltiness on Ianto's fingers paired with a hint of soap.

Ianto moaned behind him as Jack began to suck on his finger, playing this appendage as expertly as other body parts of Ianto. 

A loud crash and Gwen's colourful swearing startled them, Ianto's finger almost collateral damage in the process, and they moved apart for good. 

“ I really should check up on Owen.”

“ You do that,“ Ianto chuckled, and adjusted his tie. He handed Jack his stopwatch, who threw confused looks between Ianto and the stopwatch (whose clock face showed twenty-nine minutes and still going). With a sly little smile on his lips, Ianto pointed to the monitor where the CCTV images of the bay still showed calm water and no Owen.

Jack chuckled in comprehension and gave the stopwatch back to Ianto. He let him help him with his coat before he left the Hub through the invisible lift. 

 

“ Thirty-six minutes. Not bad.” 

“ You were watching?”

“ Skinny guy in tight jeans runs into the water? I was taking pictures.” Well, not really, he'd been occupied with another guy in a smart suite, but you had to grant him that he'd peeked at the monitor of the CCTV now and again. He was nothing if not able to multi-task. 

He turned around, and strolled along the pier back to Roald Dahl Plass.

“ You wanna have something to do?” he called back over his shoulder. “You can babysit my kid.”

Owen didn't reply anything to that, which surprised Jack frankly. He just growled softly, and followed Jack back into the Hub.

 

“ You really should think about it, the offer stands, any time. And you're always welcome here.”

Martha smiled at Jack. “Thanks, I appreciate that, but at the moment, I'm pretty happy where I am.”

Jack stuck out his bottom lip theatrically. “Tragic.”

“ Oh, poor baby,” she purred amused, and patted his cheek. “You could come visit me.”

Jack grimaced in disgust.

“ All right, all right!” Martha burst out laughing. “Already noticed that you're not a big UNIT fan.”

“ It's not my fault they're so uncooperative and stubborn.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and ignored Ianto's cynical grunting in the background as well as his “who's the stubborn one”. 

Martha stemmed her hands into her hips, and glared at Jack playfully. “Hey. I'm with them now, so, careful, Mister!”

“ Yeah, yeah. The universe will fall to pieces because of that. You really should come work for us.”

Since she didn't want to deepen this discussion because she had an inkling how persistent Jack would be with this, Martha snatched up her briefcase, chuckling softly, and made to leave Jack's office. 

“ You really want to leave me just standing here?!” Jack cried indignantly.

She threw him a challenging gaze over her shoulder. “Then come here, and say goodbye properly instead of arguing with me.”

Jack didn't need to be told twice. With one long step, he had bridged the distance between him and Martha, and pulled her into his arms exuberantly. When Ianto, in just that moment, wanted to squeeze by the two old companions, Jack dragged him back, and into the embrace as well. 

“ My two favourite Jones ', ” he sighed happily. “You can't imagine what I'm thinking just now.”

“'s maybe for the best,” Ianto replied dryly, but nonetheless pressed deeper into Jack's embrace while Martha giggled. 

For a moment, the trio remained in the intimate embrace, before Ianto cleared his throat awkwardly, prying himself loose from the other two. 

“ All the best, Martha,” he wished a little formal, and straightened his tie. 

Eventually, Martha managed to get away from Jack as well, and with a brilliant smile for both men, she was out of the door. 

 

** Chapter 10 **

The doorbell, unnaturally loud in his ears, made him flinch involuntarily. This was one of the most stupid ideas he'd had in a while, but now it was too late to pack-pedal. Already in the next moment, the door opened, and he stood eye to eye with his daughter who stared at him unenthusiastically.

“ Hey Alice.” He didn't even manage his usual disarming smile, that's how nervous he was all of a sudden. 

“ What a surprise,” she replied impassively. 

Jack shrugged helplessly. “May I come in?”

For a moment, her hand holding the door tensed up so as if she wanted to slam it in his face – which probably was the case –, but then she pushed the door open wider, and stepped aside with a sigh. 

 

“ What do you want?” Alice asked without ceremony after they'd sat down at the kitchen table, and she'd made them a cup if coffee. 

“Nothin',” he mumbled, evading her searching gaze, his fingers gripping his cup nervously. He was glad that Steven wasn't here to sidetrack him. With his grandson in the house, he would have shown even less courage to tell Alice about Gwil. He didn't know what had gotten into him. Ianto'd only be angry with him, because now he would have to tell his sister in return since Jack brought himself to tell Alice. But something had changed over the course of the last week. Every time he held Gwil in his arms, he was overcome with nostalgia, and he couldn't help himself but to think of his other children, which was why he now sat in Alice's kitchen. 

“ I have to tell you something.”

Expectantly – and sceptically –, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Aha,“ she made, and stared at him. 

“ You... you have a brother.” There, said it. Wasn't so bad in the end.

Jack looked up when Alice failed to reply something for a long time. She only blinked at him in surprise. 

“ Oh,” she said eventually.

Jack nodded. “His name's Gwilym. He was born last week.”

Involuntarily, Alice pressed her lips together, and only barely refrained from asking if it had been an accident. “Are you serious about her?” she asked instead, even if she could guess the answer already. All the time she'd known him, he never had a serious relationship. Jesus Christ, even her own mother hadn't been a serious relationship for him, so she couldn't picture that he was even capable of having one in the first place. She wasn't really eager to meet one of his bed bunnies if he planned to bring the baby here some time. But she couldn't tell him that. She didn't know the woman, and it would have been unfair to her. 

Jack nodded. “With him,” he corrected her, much to her surprise.

“ You got a man pregnant?!” she burst out aghast, glad that Steven wasn't home at the moment, while a sober “bloody Torchwood” went through her head.

“ It was rather him impregnating me. It was an accident.”

By now, she didn't even manage to say something scathing about the accident-comment. A male pregnancy couldn't be anything else than an accident. 

“ I'd have loved to see your faces,” she chuckled against her will. 

Jack grinned at her a little shy, and shrugged. “We were a little shocked, granted.”

“ That's all?”

Jack blinked before he understood what she was hinting at. “Oh, that... no, he... Ianto is my Archivist.”

“ Another Torchwood-baby.” Her voice was suddenly void of any emotion. 

Jack shrugged again, more and more helpless. “We'll manage. This time, I want to do everything right...”

He trailed off, and looked up, meeting Alice's furious gaze. “You mean, as opposed to me.”

He sighed. That again. “I'm sorry that everything came to this. With us, with your mother and me... but in my defence, I'm not the only one at fault. I may not always have been the best father, but it was your mother who went into hiding with you.”

Alice flared up, his words being exactly the wrong thing to say to appease her. “You're dangerous!“ she accused him. „And mum realised that, and she acted before you could hurt us.”

“ Our job is dangerous, not me,” Jack hissed back, deeply hurt. “Do you think it's fun being immortal? Seeing all of you getting old and die? Or having to leave you for your own protection so that nobody notices? Your mother was one of the few who knew about my immortality, but that only made it worse. I just should've left you instead of enduring all this trouble.”

Alice narrowed her eyes to small slits. “In that case, my  _ brother _ can brace himself for a lovely childhood.”

Now, it was Jack who glared at her from narrowed eyes. “What's with the strange tone? He  _ is _ your brother.”

“ I'm almost forty years older than him!” she exclaimed exasperated.

“ Granted, that's a huge age gap, but not impossible. There are  _ normal _ people, too, who have children with this great an age difference.” He couldn't withhold the cynicism in his voice. 

“The normalcy of these people is open to debate in such a case,” she grumbled, and still glared at him. 

“ So, you don't want to have any part in Gwil's life?” Jack asked heart-stricken to which she stubbornly didn't reply. “I would never expect for you to accept Ianto as your stepfather, but Gwilym is your brother whether you like it or not. It's not his fault.”

“ I agree with you for once, it isn't his fault. It's your fault as usual. And Torchwood's fault, but basically that's the same.”

“Torchwood is the only place accepting me with my  _ condition _ . Where should I go otherwise.”

Alice pursed her lips once more, and only with difficulty held back the nasty comment coming to mind about her father fitting in well with the freak show that was Torchwood. In that context, she suddenly wondered what the man currently warming her father's bed and with whom he'd conceived a child by accident was like.

“How old is he?” she therefore asked abruptly because she knew they joined Torchwood young, but didn't get old there.

Jack stared at her defiantly. “Twenty-five.”

“ Oh God!” Alice cried horrified. “He's more than ten years younger than me! Have you no shame!?“

“ He is young, yes, but Ianto understands me better than all my other partners before him,” Jack hissed. “Certainly better than your mother.”

Alice flinched like under a whiplash. That hit home, but she didn't want to let it show. “Hmhm, I can imagine how good he understands you,” she mumbled spitefully instead. 

“ Why are you so unfair on him?! The pregnancy wasn't his fault, it was an accident with an alien. And I would have expected more of you than you getting worked up about the fact that I have a partner who's younger than you, if that's what this is all about. You seem to forget that ev'rybody is young in comparison to me.”

“ Yes,” she spat. “Don't remind me. I already look older than you.”

“ I'm more than aware,” Jack replied, and the heartbreaking desperation in his voice even silenced Alice for the moment. 

“It was a mistake coming here,” Jack suddenly murmured sadly into the oppressive silence while the two of them only had stared at each other in outrage. Then he left the kitchen. 

Alice bit her lip, but did not call her father back. Motionless, she sat in her kitchen, and stared into space until the noise of the shutting door echoed through the hallway. 

 

Jack didn't want to tell Ianto about his spontaneous visit at his daughter's, but when Ianto eventually came home, finding him standing in the dark living room, the sleeping baby tightly in his arms, the younger man knew that something was wrong. He knew Jack too well. 

Involuntarily, he shuddered in relief as strong arms wrapped around his middle, Ianto's body pressed firmly against his back. 

“Come to bed, hm,” Ianto murmured, and brushed a loving kiss on Jack's shoulder of which he imagined feeling its heat even through his T-shirt. 

He sighed heavily, but followed Ianto into the bedroom. 

After putting Gwilym into his cot carefully, and getting ready for bed themselves, they lay facing each other in the dark. Jack sensed Ianto's gaze resting on him although his partner couldn't really make him out in the dim light of the street lanterns falling through the window. 

“ I've been to see Alice today,” he choked out eventually. 

He heard Ianto take in a surprised breath. 

“Don't worry,” he assured him hastily. “You don't have to tell your sister now because of that.” He moved a little closer to Ianto, he needed his closeness and warmth now. “You were right, it was a bad idea to tell her about Gwil.”

“ Why did you go?” There was no accusation in Ianto's voice, just curiosity.

Jack sighed, and snuggled into Ianto's arms. “I... I just wanted to see her. I failed in so many aspects with her, so I just wanted to do something right for once.” 

“ It was the right thing to do,” Ianto assured.

Jack made a bitter noise. “Not in her eyes.”

Ianto kept silent for some time, contemplatively, before he answered him carefully, “There's nothing to blame yourself for. If she doesn't want to accept her brother, then it's her business, even though I'm sorry that she hurt you because of that.”

“ I should be used to it,” Jack joked bitterly.

“ You never get used to it when the people who should love us are the ones who hurt us.” They both knew that Ianto talked from experience, but nobody said anything since they didn't want to summon the memory of Ianto's father to this room as well.

 

** Chapter 11 **

The ringing of Jack's mobile was definitely much too loud for a Saturday morning. 

“ Jack,” Ianto growled tiredly, but Captain Harkness had,  _ when _ he actually managed to sleep, a downright blessed sleep. The same applied to his son who didn't make a sound in his cradle. Irritated, Ianto scrambled up, and reached over Jack whereas he really didn't care which body parts he squished along with that. Brusquely, he snatched Jack's mobile from the bedside table. 

Gwen.

Great.

Did she get cold feet, or what?!

As a matter of fact, Ianto hadn't planned to invest more into this wedding than all the other guests as well. 

Regretfully, this wouldn't come to be. 

“ Gwen. Good mor...” He tore the mobile from his ear. Her hysterical wailing was still understandable even half a metre away. 

Ianto let her scream and wail for the time being while at the same time, he tried to figure out what the hell had happened.

Eventually, he put the mobile back against his ear. “Gwen, listen... yes, I'll send him over straight away. Don't worry, ev'rything will be fine.”

And with that, he rung off, enjoying the blessed silence enveloping him for a precious moment. 

Then, he faced reality with a long-suffering sigh. 

„ Jack!“

 

After hauling Jack first out of the bed, then out of the flat, Ianto granted himself a further thirty minutes of peace and silence in bed until the other Harkness started to demand attention at the top of his voice. 

At least Ianto managed a decent breakfast, feeding the baby, and getting dressed calmly before Jack called him to inform him of the situation. 

He sighed.

The situation turned out worse than he had feared. But it was no good, he had to get through this now. 

Therefore, he grabbed Gwilym, and drove to the Hub, all the while mourning the fact that today was Saturday, and therefore Kelly's – the medicine student they'd hired last week for exactly these occasions where the whole team was needed, and nobody could look after Gwil – free day (they had told her the usual stuff, that they worked for a special ops unit, therefore with highly volatile, unpredictable working hours, but nevertheless urgently needing someone to look after the newborn given into their care when Ianto's ex had been killed in an accident last week heavily pregnant). Because actually, they had planned on staying at home on the weekends as often as possible, leaving Torchwood with the rest of the team.

Today, this wouldn't be possible obviously. Therefore, Gwil had to come with him. Ianto thanked all the Gods on his knees that Gwil didn't take after his attention whore of a father, instead having turned out to be an unusual relaxed and modest baby with the fortunate ability to fall asleep at once everywhere and any time provided he was happy (ergo, sated and dry). 

 

He arrived roughly about the same time Jack and Owen returned to the Hub as well where the two brought him up to date more or less amused. 

“We have way too many pregnancies here lately,” Owen grumbled with a sigh, and retreated down into the autopsy bay in relief. Dissecting a dead alien was highly preferable to getting dragged into all this wedding-pregnancy drama.

Jack let out a heavy sigh, and shook his head in irritation, but inwardly, he agreed with Owen. But it was no good, they had to deal with this situation now as well. And when Gwen insisted on her wedding, then she should get it, no matter what.

“Ianto.” 

“ Jack?”

“Gwen needs a new dress. A much bigger one.” Jack threw Ianto a pointed look who simply nodded with a professional look plastered onto his face, resigning himself to his fate. 

Shopping again. 

And then for a wedding dress of all things.

He as a man alone in such a shop. That could only go wrong.

 

Ianto still felt his face being as red as a lobster when he finally fled from the wedding gown boutique, a huge cardboard box with Gwen's new dress in his arms. 

He didn't really grasp why Tosh couldn't have come with him instead of waiting at the Hub for him to bring him the dress, but he knew one thing for sure; Jack would somehow pay for this.

Next time, he could go himself. The salesman would have been putty confronted with Jack's charm so that he wouldn't have had any time to harbour smug thoughts in the first place.

 

Jack stopped short in opening the passenger seat door of the SUV as he spied the baby on the back seat. “You're not seriously gonna take him with us.” He glared at Ianto irritated.

Who glared back.

“ In case you may have forgotten, it's a weekend, therefore, Kelly's got other things to do, and we wanted to take him with us to the wedding either way. Who could've expected something like that.”

Jack grunted sceptically, and his mood definitely didn't improve when Owen made a move to climb onto the back seat as well.

“ Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that supposed to be when it's done?” 

Owen threw him an exasperated look without pausing for even a second. 

Wisely, Ianto tuned out the following discussion if Owen really wanted to come with them, and then, to top it off, wanted to use the singularity scalpel, and instead started to mentally prepare himself for a completely chaotic, surreal day which could only end with a huge amount of work for him as well as only being dealt with a huge amount of Retcon. 

Great. There was nothing he wished for more.

 

** Chapter 12 **

Although Ianto worked only part-time at the moment and only during the week so that he could spend the weekends with Jack and their son, the Hub safely in the hands of the rest of the team, the Rift didn't always give a shit about the young family's plans. 

So, Ianto had accompanied Jack to work as usual, Gwil in Kelly's care. But the readings that had led the team to a remote, abandoned factory mid-morning threatened to promise a long day ahead of them. Sighing, Ianto called Kelly to tell her that he wouldn't make it being home by noon as usual. He felt uncomfortable with that, he didn't want to make a habit of it, but the building was too big so that they would need the whole team to scour it for the presumed aliens, especially since Gwen hadn't shown up this morning yet.

Ianto exchanged a look with Jack who was visibly put out about her delay, and send her the coordinates of their whereabouts.

Then, they entered the building with their weapons drawn.

 

Every single bone in Ianto's body ached, but he ignored the pain bravely, and instead of that, he had to stop himself with all his might from calling Kelly again for the third time to enquire if she and Gwil were all right although he knew for sure that the explosions hadn't even been near his flat. But instead, there were Weevils all over the place suddenly which was why he and Tosh couldn't get to the nuclear power station. And they still didn't know what had happened to Jack. 

God, he felt so helpless. 

If he got a hold of John Hart, he would strangle his skinny neck. 

 

“Why can't you simply teleport outside with your vortex manipulator?” Ianto called over to John in exasperation who just gave an inarticulate grunt before the air was suddenly filled with a high-pitched buzzing sound.

“First the Weevils,” he called back, and then started to tinker with another part of his vortex manipulator. “The little shit fiddled with the teleportation feature. Will take a while to get it going again.” Carefully, he poked the insides of the device with a bit of bare wire. “You don't have any tools lying around in your cells by any chance, do you?” Reproachful silence droned over to him. “Sloppy,” he grumbled heavily, and became engrossed in his work again. 

 

Ianto startled when suddenly, the cries of a baby echoed through the cell block even before the blue light of the vortex portal had disappeared completely. His blood run cold in his veins when he found himself face to face with Grey who held a crying Gwilym in his arms. “Don't touch my son!” he screamed at Grey, and desperately beat his fists against the unrelenting pane of the cell.

“No,” Grey replied simply. “My brother having a child is too good an opportunity to let him suffer than to simply waste it.” 

Ianto swallowed heavily when he realised all at once what it meant that Grey had retrieved Gwil from their flat. “What about Kelly?”

“She didn't want to surrender the child voluntarily.”

“So you simply killed her, you bastard!?” Gwen screamed from the next cell because Ianto was incapable to form any coherent words at the moment. 

“A war demands victims,” was Grey's emotionless reply.

“But this isn't a war! Leave all those innocents out of your sick vendetta against your brother!” Furious with rage and desperation, Gwen pounded her fists against the cell's pane, unsuccessful. 

“She was only twenty years old,” Ianto whispered. He suddenly felt as if his grief and desperation and guilt had carved out his insides so that all that remained was an empty shell.

Grey shrugged indifferently. “And I was just a child when they took me.”

Ianto met the cold, empty eyes which were so similar to Jack's that it sent a shudder through him, and it made him turn his gaze away.

“ But this wasn't Jack's fault!” Gwen hissed, and now Grey turned towards her.

“ He let go of my hand!” he hissed back. “Our father gave him but one task: Take Grey and run. He just should hold my hand and bring me to safety. He didn't.”

„And he regrets it ever since,“ John threw in suddenly to stall Grey. “He regrets it every day, tried to find you for all those years.”

Grey sneered. “Forgive me if I have my doubts about that. On the contrary, my brother seems to lead a pretty comfortable life here in this time. With friends... and a family.” Once more, he looked down at the fussing baby on his arm. 

“ Please,” Ianto begged desperately once more, and looked beseechingly at Grey. “He's just a baby. He's your nephew!”

Grey looked at him impassively. “And Jack is my brother. Bad luck for the kid if it's Jack's.”

Ianto had to swallow heavily when faced with the complete iciness in Grey's voice. “What are you gonna do to him?” he whispered although he really didn't want to know, and it tore him apart on the inside even to think about it. 

“I believe my brother has been incapacitated long enough now. He should join as again so that he can be with his family for the last time before I skin you all alive. Starting with this one.” He bounced Gwil in his arms in a mocking parody of his role as loving uncle. “Granted, it will be fast with him.” 

“ You bastard,“ Ianto screamed, and once more pounded his fists against the thick fibreglass for which Grey simply scoffed at him coldly. 

A sudden blue light appearing next to Grey made Ianto rear back before he pressed against the glass again in desperation, but he could only watch helplessly as John suddenly struggled with Grey. Gwil's frantic screech went right through him, but he couldn't do anything to help his son. Suddenly, Grey pulled forth a long, blood-smeared (probably Jack's) knife, and Ianto's heart stopped. But in the same moment, John managed to wrangle Gwil from Grey. He stumbled back, the baby pressed tightly against his chest while Grey advanced on them menacingly. 

“You'll never get him,” John hissed, and suddenly, golden light encased him.

Then, he and Gwil were gone.

Nonplussed, all three of them stared for a second at the spot the ex-Time Agent had just stood. Then, Grey came out of his rigour with a furious scream. He stowed the knife into his belt once more, and activated his vortex manipulator. 

Then he too was gone.

Ianto's whole body suddenly felt completely numb. Gwen's voice calling his name only got through to him as if through cotton wool. His trembling legs didn't hold him up any more so that he sank to the ground powerlessly. 

 

** Chapter 13 **

“What the fuck is going on here?!” Gwen screeched hysterically because both of them had heard the shot echoing even down here to the cells only a few minutes after John and Grey had disappeared. 

Renewed fear penetrated the stupor holding Ianto in its grip tightly so that now, he too asked himself which of his friends had fallen victim to the obviously returned Grey. But even worse than the image of Tosh or Owen's lifeless bodies upstairs was the horrible uncertainty if he would ever see his son again – or Jack because still nobody knew what had happened to him.

Suddenly, the cell's doors swung open with a whoosh, and Ianto stormed outside, almost running Jack over in the corridor. He embraced his partner tightly, and buried his face in the crook of Jack's neck. He'd love nothing better at the moment than to let the renewed tears burning in his eyes fall, tears of relief to have Jack back again, but also tears of desperation to have lost his son. But he held himself in check. Chances stood that it wasn't over yet.

“Jack,” Ianto whispered urgently, and separated from him again to look at him. “Where have you been!”

“ Shh, later,” Jack explained soothingly, but firmly. Then, he shoved Ianto away from him, and looked at him beseechingly. “Where's Grey?”

The reaction Ianto showed to his question hit him completely unprepared, and he could only expect the worst.

“ He locked us up in here, and suddenly, he had Gwil, and... and...” Ianto knew perfectly well that he was short of becoming hysterical which was why he was incredibly grateful when Gwen took over from him. 

“Grey wanted to kill him, but John got his vortex manipulator working again. He grabbed Gwil... and then he disappeared through a vortex portal with him. Grey followed them.” 

Jack paled visibly under all the dust coating him, and he exchanged disbelieving, frantic looks between Ianto and Gwen .

Suddenly, Gwen made a choked noise when she remembered something else. “The shot!” she cried in a panic, and looked at Ianto who returned her gaze terrified.

The three colleagues looked at each other with wide eyes before Ianto and Gwen cried “Tosh!” at the same time. Then they ran. 

 

When they rushed up into the Hub, they were confronted with a completely unexpected sight which nonetheless made them breath a heavy sigh of relief – at least relatively relieved. Grey stood eye to eye with a strange young man. John Hart stood behind the stranger, and had positioned himself protectively before Tosh and Owen, both of them safe and sound. 

“As if I surrender to someone like you,” Grey then said to the young man disdainfully who in turn glared at him with flaring nostrils. 

“ For you it's Dr. Jones, got it,  _ uncle _ .” 

Jack as well as Ianto and Gwen couldn't contain a surprised gasp when they realised who this young man was. And yes, when you looked closely at it, he bore a striking resemblance to Ianto, but with Jack's chin and ears.

Instinctively, Ianto grabbed for Jack's hand to find support when the realisation that he had his son back – even if not in the same form as before – threatened to bring him to his knees. 

Grey threw John Hart a hate-filled look. “I didn't realise  _how_ long you managed to escape me time and time again.” He shrugged. “But it doesn't matter. You only prolonged the death of this one, nephew.” He indicated Tosh so that Owen stepped before her protectively. 

“ You're wrong,” Gwilym replied serenely. 

“ He's right, Grey,” Jack called, and his brother spun around in shock. “It's over.”

And with that, Jack advanced on his brother swiftly, stopping only centimetres before him. For a few moments, they looked each other intensely in the eye before Jack put his hand with the hidden chloroform-soaked cloth in it over Grey's mouth lightning fast. He stared into nothingness, unbearable pain in his eyes when his brother slumped in his arms unconsciously. He gently brought him down to the floor, and just for a moment, held him in his arms. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't hate Grey despite everything he had done.

He looked up when a warm hand laid itself on his shoulder consolingly, meeting Ianto's gaze.

“What will you do now?” his young lover asked softly.

Jack pressed his lips tightly together, and laid his cheek onto the top of Grey's head. “We'll take him into the cryo chambers. Maybe...” He swallowed heavily. “Maybe one day there's a chance to help him.”

Ianto nodded without starting a discussion over the decision. Instead, he signalled Owen over to them, and asked the doctor together with Gwen to take Grey downstairs. Under normal circumstances, he would have done it himself, but Jack needed him right now. And furthermore, he didn't want to let his son out of his sight for even one second. 

He helped Jack up, and together, they faced their adult son who was flanked by John Hart.

“What happened?” Ianto asked in a choked voice, and looked from Gwilym to John and back.

The former Time Agent shrugged. “I took Gwil a few hundred years into the future, hiding him with a family named Jones. May be they're actually descendants of you, Ianto.” He looked at Ianto who returned his gaze in surprise. “But Grey didn't want to give up,” he carried on. “So, I lured him away from Gwil, jumped through time again and again to lay a false trail. For me, it's only been minutes, but for Gwil it's been years. When I was sure that I'd lost Grey for the time being, I visited with him sometimes. I didn't want him to grow up without knowing who he is... or who his parents are.”

“When I was twelve, Grey found us,” Gwilym took over. “We had to flee together. John hid me in different times, but in the end, he kept me with him to raise me himself.”

“ My son's been raised by an infantile small-time criminal!” Ianto breathed disbelievingly.

“ Hey!” his son as well as the infantile small-time criminal made.

“I'll just ignore the small-time criminal comment, all right” John pouted. 

“ Aha, so you admit to being infantile?”

John shrugged while Jack nudged Ianto's shoulder to signal him to calm down.

Gwilym glared pointedly at his father, a typical Harkness chuckle playing around the corners of his mouth though before he continued, “Anyway, Grey gave up eventually. He had to have realised that we would return here any way. He could wait for us here just as well.”

“How old are you now?” Ianto asked shakily.

“Nineteen.”

Ianto made a choked noise when he realised how much time he had lost with his son, and Jack put his arms around him consolingly. Initially, he'd thought him even older since he was tall and muscular, not looking like a lanky nineteen year old in the slightest, but it was a huge amount of time nonetheless.

“I know,” Gwilym smiled sadly. “But despite everything, I had a good childhood. And we haven't been idle this whole time. John taught me a lot.”

“Like operating one of these,” Jack noted, and indicated the vortex manipulator around Gwilym's wrist, and he really didn't want to know how these two had gotten a hold of it.

Nonetheless, he was glad since it had allowed his son to come back to them.

“Among other things, yes. And he prepared me for this day.”

“This shouldn't have been your task,” Ianto protested who really didn't like that his child had been raised to be a warrior.

Gwilym smiled when he guessed Ianto's thoughts. “To save my parents and their friends; I think yes. And it isn't as if I didn't learn something decent. After all, I've studied xeno-biology, chemistry, physics and mechanics at Luna-University. And a little medicine when I became bored.”

His parents gaped at him with big eyes so that, for the first time, Gwilym's young age shone through as he blushed sheepishly.

“Hence the doctor,” Ianto gasped astonished.

“Seems as if the Jones-genes are not only dominant when it comes to appearances, hm,” Jack teased proudly, and squeezed Ianto tightly who was now the one to blush.

“He's Eye-candy's son through and through,” John confirmed with a grin, and to everyone's shock, he kissed Gwilym's cheek who leaned into the older man readily.

“ Oh God!” Ianto moaned desperately. “Now John Hart's my son-in-law as well!”

The man grinned at him insolently. “Well, what can I say. He not only got his daddy's cuteness but the irresistible charm of his, ehm, mother as well. Not to mention this whiff of 51 st century hormones.” He put an arm around Gwilym's waist, and pulled him up against him. “How could I have resisted there.” 

Jack marched up to John, and only stopped a few centimetres away from him. He glared down on him. “Who's here the mother, hm?” he asked indignantly, and brought his face even closer to John's so that their noses almost brushed. “Did it feel like that to you in that time loop?”

He removed himself again a little, and grinned at John when the other man had to swallow heavily, his cheeks slightly flushed. 

“Much as I love you, Dad,” Gwilym barged in suddenly, and shoved himself between his father and John. “But hands off. He's mine now.”

Jack  backed away with raised hands, a disarming grin lighting up his face. “Got it. I won't challenge you over him.”

In that moment, Gwen and Owen came back up. They looked from one to the other.

“ Did we miss something?” Owen asked eagerly. 

Tosh, being the only one of them to have followed everything, chuckled. “I'll tell you later.”

“Is that really Gwil?” Gwen hissed, still shocked. “Our little Gwil?” 

Tosh shrugged. “I'm afraid so.”

“Oh dear. I don't want to imagine what's going on in Ianto and Jack at the moment.” Compassionately, she looked from one to the other man who, in her opinion, took this remarkably calm. But, after all, they had had a little time to process everything already while Gwen and Owen had put Grey into one of the cryo chambers where he would be stored for who knew how long. Maybe they still were in shock as well.

But this was how it was now. And all weeping and lamenting was no use any more now either. Instead, she squared her shoulders, and dragged Owen over to the four men. She threw Gwil a hesitant smile. “Hey. You remember us?”

Gwil broke the intense eye contact to Jack, and turned to the other Torchwood agents, a typical charming Jack-smile on his lips. “I think I've been a little too young for that.” He winked at them. “But we can make up for lost time now after all.”

Ianto chuckled, and for the moment, he retrieved from the conversation to put his thoughts back into order. Strangely, the one thing coming first to his mind was that he was glad that he hadn't told his sister about her nephew after all. He really didn't know how he should have explained to her that her newborn nephew had turned into an adult man from one second to the other.

And for the rest...

He had to be strong now, and had to see this whole situation from its sober, practical side. What should they have done with a baby at Torchwood in the long run any way. Sooner or later, it wouldn't have worked any more. Some time, they would have reached the point where they, or rather Ianto, would have had to chose between Torchwood or his son. Now, fate had taken this decision out of his hands.

It hurt, sure. But that was life at Torchwood, and he had to accept things as they were now. The only consolation he had was that everyone had survived the day.

This time.

And thanks to John Hart to top it all.

“Wow, that's really unbelievable,” Gwen exclaimed after she had elicited the story from Gwilym and John. “What are your plans now?”

At this question, Ianto perked up again, and peered over to Gwilym. 

Gwilym however, changed questioning gazes with John. “I think we'll explore this planet a bit. Seems to be pretty interesting this 21 st century.” He held up his vortex manipulator. “And I'm just one touch of a button away from you.”

“You don't wanna stay?” Involuntarily, Ianto butted into the conversation again, and at the same time, he was angry at himself. He sounded like an overbearing mother-hen, but he couldn't help himself. 

Gwilym smiled lovingly at him. “Don't worry. You won't lose me. Not again.”

Ianto nodded mutely. 

Then Gwilym looked  at Jack. “I've got a farewell present for you,” he declared, and pulled forth a small vial. 

“ What's that?” Jack asked when he accepted it.

“ The end of your immortality.”

Everyone present stared at the young man, lost for words, who simply shrugged. “What. I'm a xeno-biologist and chemist, and a genius by the way.”

“But how did you...” Jack cut himself off, and threw disbelieving, hopeful looks between his son and the small flask in his hand, its clear-blue contents were shot through with golden glittering vortex particles upon closer examination.

“Don't ask. It was tricky, and took up an awful lot of time. And I had to borrow the TARDIS for a while, admittedly with a little help from this incredible fascinating woman, archaeology professor at the Luna, a genius as well. And she can fly the TARDIS which is why we could borrow her for a little while with her help. The Doctor didn't even notice, said she does that once in a while for fun. However, it works at any rate. Tested it on your blood .”

“ Where did you get his blood from?” Gwen asked sceptically, before Jack could ask questions about the Doctor and this mysterious woman.

Gwilym shrugged once more. “Not really difficult to draw enough blood if he lies around somewhere dead again.” He turned to Jack. “You remember this one time in 1899 when you were stabbed with a glass bottle?”

Jack nodded hesitantly. He thought he could recall an incident like that.

“ That's when I did it before these crazy Torchwood lesbians bagged you.”  He shrugged. “You can use it now, or...” He threw speculative looks between his parents. “Or you wait until you're the same age.”

The two men threw each other contemplative looks. As long as they worked for Torchwood, Ianto would prefer for Jack to keep his immortality. It was enough that one of them constantly put himself at risk. But a small, bitter if truthful voice in his head whispered that Jack would probably never quit working for Torchwood. They wouldn't let him go, not with the knowledge he'd accumulated. But nonetheless, it would be nice to wait for a few years until the age difference – at least the visual one, had been reduced somewhat. At least until he himself was over thirty. 

Provided he lived that long.

“But...” Everyone looked questioningly at Gwilym. “No matter what, you mustn't go into Thames House when the day arrives! Under no circumstances. None of you.” He looked from one to the other imploringly until his gaze stopped on Ianto. 

His gaze was so urgent and beseeching that Ianto understood immediately what Gwil wanted to tell him. He nodded emphatically, shaken inside. “No matter what happens.” 

Gwil nodded shakily, and let out a relieved breath. Then he stepped up to Jack, and whispered something in his ear before he embraced him tightly. 

He stepped back again to embrace Ianto as well. Then, he and John turned away, and he activated his vortex manipulator. He grinned at them in a typical Harkness- fashion. “See ya.”

And then, he and John were gone.

Unnatural silence descended over the Hub. A gob-smacked, slightly dazed Torchwood team was all that remained. No-one could really believe what had happened just now. It was surreal somehow. And there was no trace left that Gwilym had ever been here. For Jack and Ianto, it felt as if he had left a vacuum that hurt them well into the deepest recess of their souls. 

“Just one push of a button away, right,” Jack said in a much too cheerful, brave smile while his raspy voice told them all how deeply the day's events had affected him. He probably only now had time to come to terms with it all...

Ianto nodded, and pressed himself tightly against the older man. Instinctively, Jack grabbed his hand, and squeezed it tightly.

“ What did he tell you?” Ianto asked curiously.

Jack had to swallow heavily before he inhaled shakily, and threw Ianto a half-hearted, reassuring smile. “Tell you later.” In this moment, he simply couldn't tell Ianto that Gwil had told him how to save Steven, and how to stop the coming threat. Because that would have meant to have to think about the fact that he had been prepared, would be prepared, to sacrifice his own grandson for the sake of the world in the first place.

But now, he didn't have to any more. For once in his life, he could save all those he loved. He would always be grateful to his son for this precious gift.

He gripped the small flask tighter. If it really worked – and of that he was sure –, then he wanted to use it. He wouldn't throw away this gift, this chance of a life together with Ianto he had been given. Impulsively, he pulled Ianto in his embrace to kiss him with all he got. 

“ I will never leave you,” he whispered heatedly against Ianto's lips. 

“Your never, or my never?” Ianto smiled a little sadly since he apparently still didn't think that Jack would ever use the vial's contents. 

He laughed sti fled, overcome with sudden emotion. “Your never.”

“That's all right. For me. But not for you.” He looked inquisitively at him.

“ Maybe with this,” Jack indicated the vial, “it's all the same for us... If you want to...” He looked uncertainly at Ianto. 

Ianto swallowed heavily, exhaling a shaky breath full of hope. “Of course I want to, Jack. I love you, and I want nothing more than to spend my life with you. But what I want even more is for you to never suffer again. I had resigned myself that one day, I would have to leave you, and you would be alone again. Now, we can grow old together... I...” Ianto worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “I only wasn't sure if you would give up your immortality. Only because of me...” 

“I would. And for you, I will.” Jack nodded emphatically. “I've lived so many lives, and most of the time, I liked it. But... but that was before I met you. Now the thought of losing you, and carrying on alone is horrible. I don't want that any more, Ianto. I want a normal life. You and Gwil showed me that there can be something like that for me without having the feeling I'm missing out on something. I don't want to be like the Doctor any more, running away from everything and everyone.”

Jack had tears in his eyes which Ianto lovingly brushed away. He bridged the last centimetres between them again to kiss Jack. 

It was a promise for the future.

And a new beginning.

** End **

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked reading, then here's a bit of fanart from me as a treat:  
> https://www.deviantart.com/art/Expecting-646912625  
> And this is what Gwilym may look like with the help of a nice programm calle MorphThing.com:  
> https://celedansuniverse.deviantart.com/art/Gwilym-696747999


End file.
